Inverness, Clachnaharry, Clachnaharry Road, Caledonian Canal, Clachnaharry Lock, Canal Workshops View from the north-north-east showing part of the Canal Workshops from the internal yard

Description Inverness, Clachnaharry, Clachnaharry Road, Caledonian Canal, Clachnaharry Lock, Canal Workshops View from the north-north-east showing part of the Canal Workshops from the internal yard

Date 30/3/1999

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number D 64074

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 799571

Scope and Content Canal Workshops, Clachnaharry Lock, Caledonian Canal, Inverness, Highland, from north-north-east This shows the original blacksmith's shop of the canal workshops which were probably built around 1807 and rebuilt around 1850. The building has a lean-to extension onto its gable which has a high-level doorway giving access to a loft where materials would have been stored. The windows of this building have mainly been boarded up and part of the main block of the workshops is visible on the right. This building would have been used by blacksmiths who would have repaired and made the ironwork used in the lock gates on the canal. Carpenters in the main block would have been responsible for the wooden components of the lock gates. The Caledonian Canal was designed by Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and built between 1803 and 1822 at a cost of £840,000. It was the first example of a transport network funded by the government in Great Britain. The 96.5km-long canal provides a route for boats travelling between the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean as it runs from the Beauly Firth at Clachnaharry, Inverness, to Loch Linnhe at Corpach. Only 35.4km of this length is man-made while the other 61km runs through four lochs: Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. Unfortunately at 4.2m deep the canal was too small for most sea-going ships which led to it being altered and deepened between 1844 and 1847. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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