Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 5

LOCH-A-BHEALAICH
of its boundaries with Perthshire and Badenoch ; the
basin of the Spean, downward from the foot of Locli
Laggan, forms about one-half of all the area ; the Ben
Nevis group of mountains, with the deep glens which
skirt or cut them, occupies most of the south-western
district ; Glenspean, Glenroy, Glengloy, Glentreig, Loch
Ossian, Loch Gulbin, Loch Treig, Glen Nevis, and Ben
Nevis, are prominent features of the interior ; and the
entire district is pre-eminently Highland, abounds in
deep glens, broad moors, and lofty mountains, and is at
once wnld, romantic, and grand. It seems to take its
affix of ' aber, ' not as other places do from a confluence
of streams, but from a girdling and intersecting of lochs.
It belongs parochially to Kilmonivaig and Eilmallie,
and has been noticed in detail in our articles on these
parishes, and on its several lochs, glens, and prominent
mountains. A wolf that was slain in it in 1680 by
Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel is commonly stated to
have been the last of its kind in Great Britain ; but,
according to Chambers's Domestic Annals, one was
killed in the forest of Darnaway, Elginshire, so late as
1743. See the Rev. Alex. Stewart's Nether Lochaber
(Ediub. 1883).
Loch-a-Bhealaioh. See Glenshiel.
Loch-Achall, etc. See Achall, etc.
Lochalsh, a coast parish of SW Ross-shire, containing
the village of Balmacara, which lies on the northern
shore of Loch Alsh, 8 miles SW of Strome Ferry, 4 ENE
of Kyle-Akin, 50 WNW of Invergarry, and 63 WSW of
Beauly, and which has a branch of the Commercial Bank,
an hotel, a steamboat landing-stage, and Lochalsh post
office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and
telegi'aph departments. Containing also the village and
post office of Plockton (6J miles N by W of Balmacara)
and the Stkome Ferry terminus of the Dingwall and
Skye branch (1870) of the Highland railway (53 miles
WSW of Dingwall), the parish is bounded NW by salt-
water Loch Carron and LochcaiTon parish, NE by Urray
(detached), E by Kilmorack in Inverness-shire, and S by
Kintail and salt-water Lochs Long and Alsh. Its
utmost length, from ENE to WSW, viz., from the head
of Loch Monar to Kyle-Akin Ferry, is 28J miles ; its
utmost breadth is 6 miles ; and its area is 80i sq^uare
miles, or 51,513i acres, of which 1077| are water, 27J
tidal water, and 877|- foreshore. Loch Alsh, like a land-
locked lake, with an utmost width of 2i miles, strikes
7 miles eastward from Kyle-Akin to the vicinity of
EUandonan Castle, where it forks into Lochs Duich and
Long, the latter of which curves 5 J miles north-eastward,
though its average width is less than J mile. Issuing
from Loch Cruashie (4 x 1^ furl. ; 850 feet), the river
Ling or Long flows 11 miles west-south-westward along
the Kintail boundary to the head of Loch Long. Other
lakes are Loch MoNAR (4^ miles x 3| furl. ; 663 feet), at
the Inverness-shire border ; Loch-an-Laoigh (1 x | mile;
893 feet), on the Lochcarron boundary ; and Loch Calavie
(9x3 furl. ; 1129 feet). Loch an Tachdaidh (5x3 furl. ;
970 feet), and An Gead Loch (7x2 furl. ; 960 feet), in
the eastern interior. The surface is everywhere hilly or
grandly mountainous, rising east-north-eastward to Carn
na h-Onaich (1100 feet), "Meall Euadh (1476), Beinn
Dronaig (2612), *Lurg Mhor (3234), Beinn Bheag (2030),
and *An Riabhachan (3696), where asterisks mark those
summits that culminate on the confines of the parish.
Some small vales and the slopes of the lower hills have
a good arable soil, and the uplands are neither rocky nor
heathy, but furnish excellent pasture. Not more, how-
ever, than 1450 acres are in tillage ; some 2000 are under
wood ; and the rest is either pastoral or waste. Bal-
macara House is the only mansion ; and Sir Alexander
Matheson of Lochalsh, Bart., M.P., is almost sole
proprietor. (See Aedeoss. ) Lochalsh is in the pres-
bytery of Lochcarron and the synod of Glenelg ; the
living is worth £250. The parish church at Balmacara
village was built in 1806, and contains 650 sittings.
Other places of worship are a Government church at
Plockton, and Lochalsh and Plockton Free churches ; and
four public schools — Auchmore, Earbusaig, Lochalsh,
and Plockton — with respective accommodation for 50,
LOCHAR
82, 90, and 130 children, had (1882) an average attend-
ance of 30, 31, 53, and 79, and grants of £43, lis.,
£38, Os. 6d., £46, 9s., and £66, 12s. Valuation (1860)
£4083, (1884) £5850, 16s. 9d. Pop. (1801) 1606, (1841)
2597, (1861) 2413, (1871) 2319, (1881) 2050, of whom
1840 were Gaelic-speaking.— OrA Sw., shs. 82, 72, 81,
71, 1880-84.
Loch Alvie, etc. See Alvie, etc.
Lochan Balloch. See Monteith, Pokt of.
Loch-an-Eilein, a beautiful lake in the Rothiemurchus
portion of Duthil parish, Inverness-shire, at the SE
base of Ordbain Hill (1250 feet), and 1| mile S of
Inverdruie House. Lying 840 feet above sea-level, and
having an utmost length and breadth of 7J and 4^ fur-
longs, it is fringed with tall pines and weeping birches,
remains of the ancient Forest of Rothiemurchus ; and
contains an islet, crowned with the ruins of a fortaUce
of the Wolfe of Badenoch.— Oj-c?. Sur., sh. 74, 1877.
Lochanhead, a station at the mutual border of Tro-
queer and Lochrutton parishes, near the meeting-point
with Kirkgunzeon parish, Kirkcudbrightshh-e, on the
Dumfries and Castle-Douglas railway, 6 miles SW of
Dumfries.
Lochans, a village of Inch parish, Wigtownshire, at
the meeting-point with Portpatrick and Stonej'kirk
parishes, 2| miles S by E of Stranraer. It has a post
office and a public school.
Lochar, a morass and a stream of S Dumfriesshire.
Lochar Moss, which is distributed among the parishes
of Caerlaveroct, RuthweD, Mouswald, Torthorwald,
Dumfries, and Tinwald, extends 10 miles north-north-
westward from the Solway Firth to Locharbriggs viUage,
and varies in breadth between 2 and 3 miles. It is all
but a dead flat, from 26 to 70 feet above sea-level, and
seems at a comparatively recent period of the human
epoch to have formed a navigable inlet of the sea,
which, filling gradually with sUt and aquatic vegeta-
tion, became successively a marshy forest and a bog.
Most of it, to the depth of many feet, is soft, spongy,
and quaking ; and in the days of Robert Bruce it was
impassable by any large body of men ; but now it is
traversed by four lines of good road, and by the Glas-
gow and South-Western and the Dumfries and Lockerbie
railways, and has been so extensively reclaimed that a
large aggregate of it is arable, pastoral, or wooded, and
more resembles a pleasant valley than a moi'ass. A ridgy
tract in it, more than § mile long, and 35 acres in area,
consists entirely of sea sand. Apparently the earliest
portion won from the sea, it seems for some time to
have formed an island, and still is called the Isle. A
thick stratum of sea sand, which underlies all its moss,
and here and there is mixed with shells and other
marine deposits, has been found, by excavation, to con-
tain canoes, fragments of vessels, several iron grapples,
small anchors, and other relics of ancient navigation.
Many large and seemingly aged trees — pine chiefly, but
also oak, birch, and hazel — have been discovered in
the portions of the moss immediately above the sea
sand, and all lie with their tops towards the NE, seem-
ing to have been overthrown by the continued action of
impetuous tides and south-western blasts. Much of the
morass has long served as turbary, for the supply of
peat fuel; and parts of it were burned, in 1785 and 1826,
by accidental fire. The villages of Locharbriggs, Roucan,
Collin, Blackshaws, Bankend, and GreenmiU all lie
on or near the margin of the morass ; and the village of
Trench stands on one of the roads which traverse it.
Lochar Water, rising, as Park Burn, at an altitude of
480 feet above sea-level, flows 18^ miles south-south-
eastward along the boundary between Kii-kmahoe, Dum-
fries, and Caerlaverock on the right, and Tinwald,
Torthorwald, Mouswald, and Ruthwell on the left, tiU
it falls into the Solway Firth at a point 2J mUes E by
N of Caerlaverock Castle. It traverses Lochar Moss
from end to end, nearly through the middle, so as to
cut it into pretty equal halves ; and here is so sluggish,
or almost stagnant, as generally to look more Eke a
ditch than a stream. At low tide it has 5J mUes
further to wind across the sands, through a channel less
531