Loch drainage and improvement in Scotland

A Model of Coastal Wetland Palaeogeography and Archaeological Narratives: Loch Spynie, Northern Scotland

“…It is possible the inundated localities were within areas reclaimed in the medieval period from the estuarine Loch Spynie (Ross 2003, 209-10) (Figure 5 (a)). The other freshwater lochs, and the boggy ground around the Loch Spynie basin, which probably existed in some form since the area became ice free, were systematically drained as the Improvement period begins in earnest after c. 1750 (Stratigos 2018). The smaller lochs seem to have been nearly all drained by 1800, while Loch Spynie was drained in the first decades of the nineteenth century.…”

“…The lagoon lost its connection to the sea in the mid-second millennium AD creating a large freshwater loch which was partially documented by medieval records (Lewis and Pringle 2002, 12-3). Following the transition of the basin from estuary to lake, these wetland environments in the Laich were subsequently drained, culminating in the final drainage of Loch Spynie through a series of canals and ditches in the early nineteenth century (Stratigos 2018). The extent of the former estuarine Loch Spynie has been subject to speculation since the nineteenth century (Martin 1837;Gordon 1859).…”