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Loch Quoich Dam
Dam (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Loch Quoich Dam
Classification Dam (Period Unassigned)
Canmore ID 277482
Site Number NH00SE 2
NGR NH 07053 02310
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/277482
- Council Highland
- Parish Kilmonivaig
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Lochaber
- Former County Inverness-shire
Loch Quoich Dam, Shearer and Annand, 1955, engineers, Sir William Halcrow and Partners The largest of its kind when built for the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board, at 12 5 ft high and 1,050 ft long. Filled with earth, reinforced with concrete and faced with natural stone, it raised the loch by 100 ft and increased its surface from 3 to 7 square miles. Before the widespread clearances of the 1780s, the shores of Loch Quoich were fringed with settlements and good grazing land. Today, broken drovers' tracks and a lonely march of pylons carrying power for Glenelg and Skye are the principal features of the empty, rock-scarred landscape. Edwin Landseer was among many fashionable sportsmen who came here in the 19th century, and his best known paintings were inspired by the red deer of Glen Quoich. The flooding of Loch Quoich destroyed Glenquoich Lodge, built for Edward Ellice MP (Senr) in 1838; extended by Alexander Ross c.1900 for Lord Burton of Dochfour (a tenant from 1873-1905, who poured money into the place). Situated near the mouth of Allt Coire Peitireach, it started life fairly spartan, 'furnished in the simplest manner, with cane-bottomed chairs and iron bedsteads', but became one of the most fashionable shooting lodges of its day.
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
Field Visit (2010)
Quoich Dam lies the furthest West of all of the elements of the Great Glen Scheme. The dam provides the main storage capacity for the Western section of the Great Glen scheme with water cascaded via Quoich Power Station (see separate item) into Loch Garry and Invergarry Power Station (see separate items). The massive rockfill dam (the largest in Scotland) collects water from a large catchment which includes a number of smaller intakes from hill streams. The dam has a fixed spillway to the right hand side, utilising a natural channel in the rock. There is a spiral dispersal valve to the base of the dam and groundwater sluices. Water leaves the dam through the tunnel intake towers located on the upstream side of the dam to enter a tunnel which conveys it through to Quoich Power Station (see separate item). Quoich Dam is a good example of a large scale rockfill dam in Scotland, and is believed to be the largest in the country. The dam is faced in coursed random rubble, as are the gatehouse intake towers. This gives a good degree of architectural interest, with the rubble finish a relatively unusual feature in dam architecture under NoSHEB. The design is integrated across all of the features with a repeated balustrade feature which appears on the dam parapet and on both the intake towers and dispersal valvehouse. National Archives of Scotland (NAS), Ref: NSE North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board Collection (1943 -1990); NAS, Ref: NSE1 North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board Minutes (1943-1990); NAS, Ref NSE2 North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board Annual Reports (1943-1990); PL Payne, 1988; E Wood, 2002, 84; J Miller, 2002, 84: S MacConnachie, Architectural Heritage, XIV, (2003); Scottish Hydro Electric, 2000, 14.
Field Visit (1 October 2013 - 3 October 2013)
NH 3555 0839 – NH 0703 0230 A desk-based assessment and walkover survey were undertaken on 1–3 October 2013 in advance of the upgrading of an overhead power line between Auchterawe Power Station and Loch Quaich Dam. No previously unrecorded structures or features of archaeological significance were recorded, but substantial stretches of the route were covered with bracken.
Archive and report: RCAHMS and Highland HER
John Lewis, Scotia Archaeology, 2013
(Source: DES)
