Katy Lamb and Roger Doubal – 20 November 2023
The Victorian engineering marvel that is the Loch Katrine water supply system for Glasgow was unfolded at our last meeting on November 20. Katy Lamb and Roger Doubal made the trip over from Kinlochard Local History Group to tell a packed audience the inside story of how the two aqueducts were conceived and built in the latter half of the 19th century.
Their presentation spelled out the magnificent effort by many to realise the scheme and the skulduggery used by various parties to attempt to sabotage it. Also noted was the remarkable accuracy of the system’s design, which ensured that it operated precisely as planned from the day Queen Victoria opened the valves at the Loch Katrine outtake on 14 October 1859. It included the astonishing facts that the aqueducts were designed to drop by just 10 inches in each mile and the pipes crossing the valleys 5 feet per mile, in order to provide the gradients needed for the water to flow at the rate of initially 50 then 120 million gallons a day without the need for pumps over its 26 miles.
And they stressed the immediate impact that the arrival in the city of its first fresh water supply had on virtually eradicating cholera in Glasgow’s surging population.
It was a salutary reminder to our capacity audience of the very special pipe system running underneath Blanefield, that to this day still supplies Glasgow with water of the highest quality.
Of course, when the current £30m Scottish Water upgrade is completed, hopefully by April 2024, those of us who currently receive our supply from Burncrooks Reservoir (finally!) will be linked into the Loch Katrine supply
See more about water here :