Crinan Canal

Parliament authorised the waterway under the Crinan Canal Act of 1793, and the civil engineer John Rennie was engaged to design a route linking Loch Gilp to the Sound of Jura. Work began in 1794, but finance troubles, poor weather, high asking prices from landowners and a shortage of navvies willing to leave better-paid jobs elsewhere delayed completion until 1801, two years behind schedule, at a cost of £127,000.

The canal opened in 1801, and on Saturday 8 August that year the Carlisle Journal reported that a boat laden with fish had arrived at the Broomielaw in Glasgow from one of the Western Isles, the first vessel to have passed through the new waterway. The notice marked, in print, the moment ships could avoid the long and often dangerous passage around the Mull of Kintyre.

Early problems continued after opening: the canal bank near Lochgilphead failed in 1805, forcing the course to be diverted around marshy ground, and although the feeder reservoirs were finished in 1809, a storm two years later burst one of them, sending boulders and mud surging along the canal in both directions and wrecking locks, banks and nearby roads. Repairs cost £8,000, a considerable sum for the young company to find.

The canal company, led by the Duke of Argyll, could not meet the scale of the damage alone and turned to the government, which sent the engineer Thomas Telford to assess the works. Telford recommended improvements to the locks and a redesign of several sections, including new swing bridges cast in iron in 1816. The government paid for the repairs, but in the process the company lost control of the canal, which passed to the Caledonian Canal Commissioners.

Queen Victoria travelled the length of the canal to Crinan in 1847 during a Highland holiday, greeted at Ardrishaig and towed by four horses, two of them ridden by postilions in royal livery, before boarding the royal yacht Victoria and Albert at Crinan. Her visit turned the route into a fashionable tourist attraction: steamer companies out of Glasgow advertised it as the 'Royal Route', and by 1857 more than 44,000 passengers a year were passing through Ardrishaig to connect with steamers for Oban.

Disaster struck again on 2 February 1859, when the Camloch reservoir that fed the canal burst, sending a torrent of water and rock down onto the banks and sweeping away seven of the lock gates. The canal remained closed to through traffic until 1 May 1860, and although Parliament authorised £12,000 for repairs, the company reported spending some £3,500 more than that after large boulders were found lodged in the canal bed.

A steam-powered passenger boat named Linnet replaced the horse-drawn tourist boats in 1866 and remained in service until 1929. New sea locks built between 1930 and 1932 made the canal accessible at any state of tide, and a swing bridge was installed at Ardrishaig at the same time. Ownership passed to British Waterways in 1962, the canal closed for nine weeks of refurbishment in October 1987, and its Scottish operations became Scottish Canals in 2012.