Does Remote Loch an Tachdaidh Contain a Crannog?

by Roland Spencer-Jones

This remote loch is far from any normal vehicular access. The boundary between Attadale and Pait estates runs roughly SW-NE through the middle of the loch. Approach routes to the loch are from Pait on Loch Monar to the NE, Attadale towards the head of Loch Carron in the W, and Killilan via Strath Duilleach and the Iron Lodge to the SW. There are three islands in the loch, two of which are of interest.

OS maps showing location of Loch Tachdaidh

Historic Environment Scotland’s Canmore (ID 12075) and Highland Council Historic Environment Record (MHG44808 [Causeway] & MHG7444 [the island itself]) both describe the same features of a possibly artificial island in the southern part of Loch an Cladaidh. It is linked to a promontory on the south shore by two causeways to the SW and the NE.

The two historical references to this possible crannog are:

Odo Blundell’s 1913 paper: Further Notes on the Artificial Islands in the Highland Area. PSAS, vol XLVII, p 281:

The Gead Loch. He quotes correspondence with a local minister, the Rev. D. Mackay, Marydale, Strathglass who reports: “In this loch, which is just across the boundary between Ross-shire and Inverness-shire there are two entirely artificial islands, one of them with an evident causeway to the shore”.

Ordnance Survey visit by (NKB) 24th October 1966:

There are no crannogs on An Gead Loch, but at NH 0955 3797 about 15.0m from the S shore of Loch an Tachdaidh, there is a natural island 40.0 by 26.0m and 2.0m high, connected to the mainland by a well-defined causeway 3.5m. wide and protruding about 0.2m above the surface. There are no structures on the island.

As described above, Blundell recorded local knowledge of two crannogs in 1913 in An Gead Loch, which the OS names as the loch just to the north-east of Loch an Tachdaich, separated from it by a short river.  However, local tradition calls all three lochs here “The Gead Lochs”. There are no potential crannogs in the OS’s An Gead Loch, so it is fair to assume that the islands in Loch an Tachdaidh are the ones to which Blundell refers. 

The 1966 OS survey report states that the island 15m from the south-east shore is natural but the causeway to it is man made. After investigating it, that is our conclusion too. The island towards the SE shore of the loch is centred at NH 09580 37988, with two causeways:

• Southwest Causeway – NW end: NH 09572 37970, SE end: NH 09585 37958
• Eastern Causeway – NW end: NH 09595 37987, SE end: NH 09612 37978

Looking NW across Loch an Tachdaidh from the shoreline track. Note the proximal island we investigated. Of the two distal islands, the other potential crannog is on the R (Glenn Wilks).

The NOSAS Crannogs Project – Update, December 2022

by Richard Guest

The Crannogs project has now been running for a couple of years.  Starting as a desktop exercise, we have now progressed to some site investigation and have managed a couple of dives.

A second phase of desktop study is underway and a picture of potential crannog occurrence in Wester Ross, Lochaber and Badenoch is beginning to emerge.  Wester Ross has been a real challenge to study, with literally thousands of lochs and lochans, liberally scattered with innumerable islands.  Many of these will be natural and picking out those which may be man made is no easy task.

Loch Achilty crannog (HER MHG7791, Canmore 12472) being easily accessible, had already been snorkelled and this verified that it was an artificial island, so it was chosen as the first proper dive.  Duncan Ross from the Nautical Archaeology Society joined me for two days diving in August and you can find his blog on the experience elsewhere on the website, so I will not go into too much detail.  Travelling in the good ship “Haggis” of the Blackburn line, (a tiny rowing boat ably skippered by Dave Coombs) escorted by the canoes of James McComas and Steve North, we made landfall on the crannog, donned our dive gear and plunged in.

Surveying Loch Achility, August 2022.

We were able to find several substantial timbers embedded in the silt at the base of the stone mound, at a depth of only about two metres.  What these are, is open to debate but some of them appear to go underneath the stones so are probably part of the original construction.  There is certainly the potential to take a small sample for carbon dating and the NOSAS committee will need to decide whether the project is to go in this direction, or whether we continue to just observe and survey.

My Highland Adventure: Diving Loch Achilty Crannog and HMS Natal

by Duncan Ross

During lockdown, apart from eating too many pancakes, NASAC (Nautical Archaeology Society affiliated diving club) member Duncan Ross set himself a grand future task of visiting different kinds of underwater archaeological sites around Britain. This summer he managed to add a couple of unique Scottish sites to his gradually-expanding list.

After around two years of communication, in August 2022 I was invited to help out on a crannog investigation in the fairly anonymous Loch Achilty, just a little north of Inverness city. Assisting North of Scotland Archaeology Society (NOSAS) member Richard Guest and his intrepid team, I spent two days at a most-tranquil setting scuba diving, investigating, recording and taking photos and film of a site that could be anything from a couple of hundred years to a couple of thousand years old. 

Richard Guest explores mysterious timber and rocks around the Loch Achilty crannog: Image: Duncan Ross

Crannogs are a fairly unchartered area in the field of archaeology, and most questions about their creation and the purpose of their locations within lochs remain unanswered and open to speculation. All that usually remains is an artificial island of stones piled on top of one another – artefacts and human traces are frustratingly rare, as are diagnostic patterns that could lead to a method of classification. The crannog centre at Loch Tay focuses on the iron age roundhouse model that was discovered there, but little proof exists that others were constructed and utilised in the same way. The depth of the Loch Achilty crannog, previously unrecorded, is an ultra-accessible 2.5 metres. Needless to say, dive times were extremely long for Richard and myself.

Richard Guest and Duncan Ross prepare to place garden canes around the crannog to aid with measurements. Image: Elizabeth Blackburn

Kinellan Crannog, Strathpeffer

by John Wombell

Loch Kinellan, Google Earth 2015.

A few notes on Kinellan Crannog for crannog enthusiasts.  We are fortunate to live at Kinellan, about 400m away from the crannog as the crow flies.  In February this year Kinellan Loch froze over to a depth of 10” and we had days of glorious sunshine when local families were taking their lockdown exercise out on the ice, and we spent an afternoon on the crannog taking photos and  chatting to neighbours and their children. About 15 years ago I remember leading a NOSAS visit out to the island during another big freeze.

Kinellan Crannog taken from the south shore looking north, February 2021.

Some years ago 4 NOSAS members obtained permission from Historic Scotland and the owner to remove some fallen willow that had tumbled into the loch on the south side, in order that locals and visitors could see from the shore track the Medieval stone work surrounding most of the artificial island.  That was two days of very hard work, hand winching fallen trees back out of the loch then cutting them up.   Seeing young children exploring the island this February made me wonder whether the crannog was ever a family home with children playing or had it always been a male dominated stronghold.

Fraser’s 1916/17 report of the 1914/15 and 16 excavations was published in the PSAS and is available online. It is compulsive reading and I shall not spoil it for you by delving too far into the report.  Mr Fraser was a teacher in Dingwall and was only able to supervise the excavations part time and during school holidays.  With WW1 raging he had difficulty finding workmen but he eventually found two local men and all work appears to have been done with spades.  There is no mention of trowels.  He did however engage a Dingwall architect to make measured drawings and another teacher to make sketches.   A third person undertook the photography.  Fraser was as thorough as he could be at that time and he records a lot of detail.  I do not know whether there is an official archive stored away somewhere but a century on I think an updated expert re-interpretation of Fraser’s work would be a good starting point for new research.

The last known use of the crannog was as a kitchen garden and orchard by the tenant of Kinellan Home Farm in the late 19^th and early 20^th C.  A thicket of old fruit tree rootstock scrub still survives and few tangled gooseberry bushes.  Today though the crannog is dominated by dense mature ash and willow trees, an occasional gnarled Hawthorn and two very fine birch trees.  Many of the willows have fallen down, most are dead and rotting away but a good number, especially those that have tumbled into the loch remain alive and have produced masses of new stem growth called Phoenix growth – raised from the dead!