A towpath journey: Crinan Canal
Sailing boats and loch views
WITH the work of James Watt, John Rennie and Thomas Telford, the Crinan Canal was built between 1794 and 1809 to provide a safe short water route from Ardrishaig to Crinan.
Before the canal was built, Scotland’s jagged west coast had a vicious history, and even the Vikings preferred to drag their ships over land rather than face savage seas around the Mull of Kintyre. Now the whole canal is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, with its 15 locks and nine miles of pure pleasure.
Ardrishaig is the small Scottish town at the start of the Crinan Canal, and the canal is really the mother of the town. Before navvies began digging the trade route, there were only four houses in this quiet edge of Scotland. Through the 19th century, the town developed into a busy thriving harbour for fishermen and their catch.
The timber trade also grew from the canal and these days tourists reliably turn up too. The waft of timber still lines the water’s edge as stacks of felled trees at a working yard say all industry is not lost (170,000 tonnes of timber are exported from the pier yearly).
Within eyeshot of the yard, the water rushes through the lock gates of Ardrishaig’s Sea Lock to the loch, and beyond that towards the sea. The huge lock takes up to 300,000 litres of water to fill each time it is used. A lighthouse stands like a French lieutenant’s woman at the end of the pier. Its door is rusting and flakes of solid heritage are less packaged for tourists than Crinan’s lighthouse at the canal’s other end.
Yachts dot the horizon, their journey of misty mountains and water staying with them as they navigate round a sharp 90-degree turn at the lighthouse to arrive at the waiting lock. The Crinan Canal gives safe passage from there.
A couple of locks lift the canal away from Ardrishaig then within a mile or so, there are glimpses towards the houses of Lochgilphead lining the shoreline at the head of the loch, sailing boats and the opposite shore. The tree-lined canal follows the line of Loch Gilp until it reaches Oakfield Bridge, one of the Crinan Canal’s oldest surviving swing bridges. It’s also known as Miller’s
Bridge after a bridge keeper who did a roaring trade between commercial coal boats and Lochgilphead locals.
The canal swings round away from Lochgilphead below to the right and leads into lush leafy surroundings with pine-clad hills. About two miles from Lochgilphead, the tiny hamlet of Cairnbaan has boat moorings, a hotel overlooking the lock and Cairnbaan Swing Bridge.
A short distance from here is the ‘Càrn Bàn’ or ‘White Cairn’, a 3500-year-old burial cairn. The towpath past the next few locks is also a small access road to the few terraced houses dotted about, then, round a bend past lock 10 of Dunardry Locks, the views ahead are stunning. Dunardry Locks is a flight of five locks with basins in between. By lock 11, there’s a swing bridge and a traditional cottage now available for holiday lets.
The towpath narrows as the canal curves round the edge of Moine Mhor, a huge nature reserve with views of the mountains behind. Around the next bend, Bellanoch
Swing Bridge sits next to the wide open space and a long narrow road heading across Moine Mhor into the so-called ‘Valley of the Kings’.
Bellanoch Marina is opposite, then the canal narrows as it reaches the wooded surroundings of Crinan Bridge. Just beyond the bridge, the canal ends at Crinan Harbour, where the Crinan Canal meets the Sound of Jura. Its setting is sublime.
At Crinan Harbour, walkers are joined by boaters and day-trippers. Dutch, French, Spanish and other unfathomably foreign voices cram to have their photos taken in front of the little lighthouse.
The old lighthouse has a new job. It was built in 1851, only reaches near 20ft high, and yet as it sits at the entrance to the Crinan Canal it is a potent symbol of the menacing water that lies beyond the safety of this canal shortcut.
This canal is different from its better known Scottish big sister, the Caledonian, and as a visitor today it’s almost impossible not to over romanticise, as any visible hints of the past can send the imagination roaming. Nature wraps wildly around this canal, but it was of course man-made and deliberately constructed for man’s purpose.
Little isolated cottages whisper of lost dwellers who once assisted boats along a trade route, while information boards along the route mark stories of ancient remains and an industrial past too.