Qualla: Loch Katrine

Loch Katrine: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MatthewJS, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1810, Walter Scott published a long narrative poem called The Lady of the Lake, set on a loch in the Trossachs that almost no Englishman had ever heard of. Within months, Loch Katrine was a tourist destination. Within a year, Rossini had begun adapting it into the opera La donna del lago. Within a generation, Queen Victoria was opening the works that piped its water 26 miles south to taps in Glasgow. Today the loch still holds the same dark water it has always held, fed by burns running off Ben A'an and Glengyle, and Glasgow still drinks it, delivered by gravity through aqueducts that run uninterrupted since 1859. Rob Roy MacGregor was born at the head of the loch in 1671. The Pictish name for the place means dark, gloomy place. It is darker and gloomier than that, and more beautiful.

Read more: Loch Katrine on Qualla

Image: MatthewJS | CC BY-SA 3.0

Loch Katrine: A Pictish Name for Dark Water

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Gibson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The place-name scholar William Watson judged Katrine to be thoroughly Pictish, derived from the ancient Celtic root ceit, meaning dark or gloomy place. The name refers to the heavily forested shores that crowd the water, casting reflections that turn the surface near-black even i...

Read more: Loch Katrine on Qualla

Image: John Gibson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Loch Katrine: Walter Scott Invents Highland Tourism

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen Sweeney, CC BY-SA 2.0. Before 1810, the Highlands were a difficult, dangerous, recently pacified region most southern Britons preferred to avoid. Walter Scott changed that almost single-handedly. The Lady of the Lake, set on Loch Katrine, made the loch and the surrounding peaks fashionable overnight. C...

Read more: Loch Katrine on Qualla

Image: Stephen Sweeney | CC BY-SA 2.0

Loch Katrine: Glasgow's Water Supply

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carron K, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the 1850s, Glasgow was the second city of the British Empire and a public-health disaster. Cholera epidemics killed thousands. The Clyde was a sewer. The city needed clean water and the surrounding lowland sources were exhausted or polluted. The civil engineer John Frederick B...

Read more: Loch Katrine on Qualla

Image: Carron K | CC BY-SA 2.0

Loch Katrine: The Reservoir Glasgow Trusts

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit HARTLEPOOLMARINA2014, CC BY-SA 4.0. Loch Katrine is owned by Scottish Water and protected accordingly. The water level is artificially raised by 1.8 metres above natural, and can be drawn down by up to 2 metres in dry years. Loch Arklet, a smaller reservoir between Katrine and Loch Lomond, was added in 1914 to top ...

Read more: Loch Katrine on Qualla

Image: HARTLEPOOLMARINA2014 | CC BY-SA 4.0