Laggan, Caledonian Canal

The canal was designed by the great engineer Thomas Telford, as a ship canal to link the east and west coasts of Scotland ftom the Beauly Firth to the Atlantic via Loch Linnhe and the Sound of Mull, and to save sailing vessels the dangetous passage through the Pentland Firth. The Great Glen fault offered a natural, low-ly ing route with Lochs Ness, Oich and Lochy providing navigable waterways for much of the way. The canal now runs from Inverness to Loch Ness, and again from the head of the Loch at Fort Augustus to Loch Oich, where it passes out of our area west of Kyltra Lock. The canal was the great engineering undertaking of its time, broader and deeper than previous canals, since it was designed to take ocean-going ships. Originally intended to be 20 feet deep, it was in the end only 12 feet (3.70m) due to technical difficulties. It was built and has been maintained at government expense, and is now run by the British Waterways Board. The poet Southey has left a graphic description of construction going on at Fort Augustus in September 1820: 'Went before breakfast to look at the locks, five together. Such an extent of masonry upon such a scale, 1 had never before beheld, each of these locks being 180 feet in length. It was a most impressive and rememberable scene. Men, horses and machines at work, digging, walling and puddling going on, men wheeling barrows, horses drawing stones along the railways. The great steam engine was at rest, having done its work'. The canal employed up to 1400 men in summer, but less than half that in winter because many went home.

That part of the canal within the area covered by this volume includes, from the west end, quiet Kyltra Lock and the flight of five locks at Fort Augustus just before the canal runs into Loch Ness, where the road crosses the canal on a modern swing bridge. (The only survivor of the original cast-iron swing bridges that took roads over the canal is at Moy (NN 162826), south-west of Loch Lochy.)

The stretch of canal from Loch Ness to the sea runs close to the River Ness until it reaches Inverness. There is a regulating lock at Dochgarroch. On the outskirts of Inverness is another swing bridge and a flight of four locks at Muirtown, leading into Muirtown basin, designed as a second harbour for Inverness. At the north end of the basin lies Clachnaharry village, much of it single-storey houses built for canal workers, and the workshops which are the repair centre for the whole canal. Just south of these in Clachnaharry Road is a tall stone slab outside the Tilhill Economic Forestry Office. Erected in 1922, it bears a tribute in blank verse by the poet Robert Southey to his friend Thomas Telford on the opening of the canal in 1822. Beyond the basin is the great sea-lock which projects right out into the Beauly Firth, with lock-gates at either end. The railway crosses the canal just north of the basin on a steel swing bridge built in 1909 for the Highland Railway, and replacing the original bridge of 1862. Beside this bridge is a small wooden signal box of standard Highland Railway pattern. There is a pleasant walk out along the side of the sea-lock to the lockkeeper's house at the far end, right our in the firth, across the lock gates and back down the other side. Tow-paths provide excellent walking the length of the canal.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).