Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Quite large ships use the canal. This Swedish vessel is approaching Corpach top lock
.
From here, the canal opens out into Loch Lochy, 15km long and 160m deep, the very es-
sence of Glen Albyn as it cuts dead straight between shores rising steeply for hundreds of
metres. A reputed 9-12m monster, Lizzie, seems even less likely than the one further north.
Canal construction included raising the top water level of the loch by 3.7m. As the canal
enters the loch in the natural course of the river, the River Lochy leaves in a new Mucomir
Cut to pick up the River Spean at Bridge of Mucomir. A hydroelectric power station was ad-
ded at the confluence with the Spean in the 1960s.
Beyond the Laggan swing bridge, carrying the A82, the canal enters Loch Oich, the most
attractive of the lochs used by the canal. The highest point on the canal at 32m and 6km long
with several islands, it is only 50m deep at its deepest point, generally much less, so Jessops
designed the earliest type of continuous bucket steam dredger to deepen the channel.
A picnic area (and a grocery shop) surround Tobar nan Ceann, the Well of Seven Heads.
The well is topped by a pyramidal monument inscribed in English, French, Gaelic and Latin,
the former towards the loch, surmounted by a hand holding seven heads. It was erected in
1812 by Macdonnel of Glengarry to recall the washing of the heads of seven members of the
family of the 11th Chief Macdonnel, killed in the 1660s as a reprisal for their undertaking of
the Keppoch Murders of their two other brothers.
Invergarry Castle was once the home of the Macdonnel Chiefs of Glengarry but it was
burned by the Duke of Cumberland in 1746 after Culloden. Colonel Alexander Ranaldson
MacDonnell opposed construction of the canal because he feared it would compromise his
privacy, subsequently dying of injuries sustained when the
Stirling Castle
grounded in Loch
