JAMES WATT AT CAMPBELTOWN
Rev. Richard L. Hills

M.A., D.I.C., Ph.D., F.M.A.

Part Two

     Examination of Watt's surveys on the Kintyre peninsula will start by reviewing his reports for Carradale and Saddell, then look at those around Campbeltown and conclude with MacDowall's canal.

Carradale River

     There was, and still is though now seldom used, a small harbour on the river Carradale at Waterfoot in Carradale Bay and not at the present village. The Bay of Carradale lies in a horseshoe of hills which protect it from all winds except the southerlies. The river flows out on the western side of the bay but a small hill gave some protection to the harbour there from the southerly winds. Watt thought that this harbour, with its narrow mouth, would be very safe for small vessels. However storms, particularly south-easterlies, blew sand into the river mouth, formed a bar and blocked it, which not only prevented ships from entering the harbour but also caused the river to flood the lands higher up.

Watt looked for an inexpensive solution and sent instructions which included diagrams to show how the work should be carried out.(1) He recommended building what he called a 'jetty' which was to be built:

     from common quarry stones laid together in a heap as solid
     as may be, and the largest & best shaped of them placed
     regularly upon the outside so as their least dimensions or
     their ends shall be outmost.

The cheapest way he suggested was to build a mound of stones three feet high with a base of twelve feet out into the sea which would be left all winter when the sea would pile sand up against it. Smaller jetties at right angles would stop the sea washing the sand away. When the sand had built up level with the top, a second jetty could be built on top, against which the sand could accumulate again. He wrote:

     It may be objected that these jettys are only founded upon
     sand, but I have observed that a heavy sea which would
     undermine & beat down a strong upright wall, will beat
     over a heap of stones and drive up sand against them,
     and thereby render them more firm. At any rate if a break
     should happen in those jettys it is easy repaired, the
     workmanship being a mere trifle.

One is reminded of the modern concrete 'stabits' used to build harbour protection works which break up the force of the waves., the jetty would also help to direct the river to create a better channel. Compared with a cost of £250 for a single large jetty, Watt's small ones would cost £174. The plan for this jetty shows that it was to be situated on the east side of the river mouth and stretch eight hundred feet southwards into the sea with a beacon at its end.(2) But other contemporary maps show no signs of it and neither does the ftrst edition of the Ordnance Survey. Certainly there are no signs of any stones there today and it is doubtful whether Watt's scheme would have worked.(3)

Glen Saddell

     The valley bottom at the seaward end of Glen Saddell is about half a mile wide and fairly flat. For improving the river here, Watt proposed equally simple remedies which would allow the river to straighten itself naturally. In his report Watt said he would "confine [himself] to practical directions touching their execution and Estimates of their expence." He staked out the lines of the cuts to be made to straighten the river and sent his instructions with diagrams about how the work should be done. the work could be carried out without any further direction from himself. The cuts were to be nine feet wide at the bottom and three feet deep. The earth taken out was to be used to make embankments, behind which there could be drains to prevent the rain falling on the land flooding it. The banks were to be faced with turf and seeded. The cuts were to be started at their lower ends, leaving a solid piece at the highest part till everything else was finished. To block the old channels of the river, the higher ends were to be blocked with stone dams but the lower ends left open for the first winter so that the old channel might be filled up. To direct the flow of the river at bends, he proposed building small jetties of stone out into the stream to enable the river to scour out its own channel. Watt's estimate for four cuts, dams, drains, etc. was just under £60. While he was there, Watt also suggested improvements to the road and to the mill which had an overshot wheel twelve feet diameter. He concluded his report:

       I have now discussed those things of which I have taken notes when
     with you. If I have omitted or too lightly touched upon any part of
     the subject I shall be glad to hear from you & give you an answer -
     either upon these or any other subject I am conversant in.(4)

At the top of the valley, the river meanders across the valley floor while at the lower end it follows a straight course, suggesting that it has been straightened at some time. The earliest map is the Ordnance Survey of 1866 where the river has the same course as today so we cannot tell whether this is the result of Watt's recommendations or someone else's later. The cornmill stood by the east side of the road on the south side of the valley and was probably powered by a small stream running straight off the hill there which would have been appropriate for an overshot wheel.(5)

Campbeltown Harbour

     At Campbeltown, the construction of the 'Old Quay' was begun in 1722 but was not finished until about 1765. The adjacent 'New Quay' was started in 1754.(6) Watt was asked to report about building a 'breast', or sea wall against which ships could lie, between the two quays. His idea was to build a wall, slightly inclined on the seaward side, higher than these two quays because they were sometimes overflowed by the sea It was to be built some distance from the existing houses on the water front so that a new space would be created by filling up the area between with dredgings from the harbour or rubbish from the town. Of this new space, thirty feet would be devoted to the new quay and thirty feet for a row of houses. The expense of building the breast could be defrayed by renting out the ground for the houses or other buildings and yards. Two estimates were given, one of £459 and the other £481 depending upon the type of stone used.(7) The existing wall of well-dressed stones looks far too modern to be one built in the eighteenth century so we do not know if his suggestion was carried out.

     (It wasn't! The earliest Ordnance Survey c. 1865 shows that
     the sea still ran up to the North side of Shore Street. It is
     probable that the breach wall along Hall Street was constructed
     at the same time as Kinloch Park and Kilkerran Green were
     reclaimed in the 1870s - Editor's Note)

Craigs Meadows and Campbeltown Town Mill.

     To understand Watt's other reports, it is necessary to look at the geography around Campbeltown. The mountain range of the Kintyre peninsula is broken by a gap running across between Campbeltown and Machrihanish. Campbeltown itself lies at the foot of a small range of grassy hills with three passes or cols in them. The lowest of these is the most northerly, where the present main road from the north enters the town. Here a small stream ran down from the hills to the north past Drumore House and was used to power the Town Mill. This burn was liable to heavy spates and on several occasions during the eighteenth century swept away the bridges over it.(8) Watt was asked to advise about better ways of controlling the water and providing more power.

     Schemes for the Town Mill could be linked to improving the drainage of Craigs Meadows and also to the canal from Drumlemble because the canal would enter the town through this same pass. The hills north of Campbeltown were drained through the Craigs Meadows by the Backs Water. The burn pursued a very erratic course, starting with small streams flowing westwards out of the hills, then joining the Backs Water which flowed eastwards. The Backs Water then turned south and westwards again before making its way out to the sea at Machrihanish through Loch Sanish. This burn flooded large areas which otherwise might be good agricultural land.

     In his report, Watt was concerned with the meadow area to the north west of Campbeltown, running alongside the present main road. His solution was to straighten the burn from Craigs Farm and build banks along the new cut, with appropriate side drains and sluices. The cut would not exceed nine feet wide at the bottom and would be four feet deep. To receive full benefit of improving the upper section of this burn, it was necessary that the channel should be widened down to Loch Sanish. Once again, full instructions were given about the angle of the slopes for the new channels, how to build the banks and so on. This scheme, or a similar one, must have been carried out because the Craigs Canal was measured by George Langlands a little later.(9)

     From his surveys, Watt realised that the Backs Water in the Craigs Meadows was at a high enough level to be diverted through the pass to the Campbeltown Town Mill. A canal or leat would be constructed through the pass which would entail building a settling pond on the Craigs Meadows scheme to prevent the canal silting up as well as sluices to control floods entering this channel and the water exiting from it. The bank of the mill dam could be raised to provide much greater storage. Once again Watt gave dimensions of the works and how to construct them but it does not appear that this proposal was ever carried out in its entirety.(10) A new leat was dug at some time unknown through the pass to the mill dam but it seems to have tapped only the easterly Auchalochy Burn and not the rest of the Backs Water.

Loch Sanish

     Watt had a good eye for assessing the country in which he was working and his description of the country to the west of Campbeltown is quoted here because it is still accurate today - that is except for the modern military airbase!:

     The Straw or Strath Water rises in the hills to the south of Machrihanish Bay and flows north, under the road to Campbeltown before joining the Backs and then both turn westwards to the sea The sand hills to the west kept out the sea but also prevented the waters of the Backs and the Straw burns from flowing out easily so that a large area of fresh water peat formed between the sand hills and the range of hills behind Campbeltown. It would be interesting to know the height above sea level of this in Watt's day. On the southern side of this lay Loch Sanish. MacDowall's coal mines were on the carboniferous outcrops of the hills south of Loch Sanish, a mile west of Machrihanish where today the row of miners' cottages at Drumlemble still survives (although these are much later). Along the side of these hills the road from Machrihanish to Campbeltown still passes, following a small ridge down to Chiskan Water before climbing up again through the hills behind Campbeltown by the southernmost pass. Watt surveyed the hills behind Drumlemble in which MacDowall had built a reservoir with a twelve foot high dam to supply his water engine and found that several small streams could be diverted into it. A map suggests that the wheel was fed by a leat from the west, possibly the one today flowing past the ruined chapel at Kilkivan.(12)

     Today the sand hills by the sea stand about fifteen feet high and protect the valley beyond but also block the exit of the river. In 1773, Loch Sanish had already been drained but, as the level of the peat when dried out would fall through bacteriological action, the land level would sink. Watt reported to Colonel Charles Campbell that there was sufficient fall in the river between Loch Sanish and the sea to secure better drainage for this area. His recommendations were to straighten the channel of the Backs between Loch Sanish and the sea, to widen that channel and remove from its bed the water grass which grew there in abundance, forming somewhere for sand to lodge and block the channel. He also proposed embanking the new channels and constructing proper sluices in these banks to prevent the river floods entering the meadows. To help make these drains, Watt said that "A bevel of slope level should be used for carrying the slopes regularly." This was a right angle triangle made from wooden bars with the hypoteneuse showing the slope which was determined by a plumb line hanging down one of the other sides. Such a device was typical of Watt's lively mind. A back drain was to be cut at the edge of the high ground on the south to take away water coming from the hills before it could enter the Loch Sanish area. This drain would discharge its waters into the tail race from MacDowall's engine. All this and other ancillary works would cost over £200. Once again it is impossible to tell how many of Watt's proposals were carried out, but it is evident that the course of the river through the sand banks has never been straightened. (13)

1. B C L , B & W., MI/3/73, Carradel River (the quotations in this section are taken from this report)

2 S.R.O., RHP 37947, 'A Plan of Caradell Bay, by Robt. Pate, July 1773'. (see above)

3. A R O., DR1/1203, Plan of the farm of Glen Carradell in the property of Dugald Campbell, Esq, 1775.

4. B C L., B &W,MI/3/71,Glen Saddel.

5. A R O, Ordnance Survey Map, lst Edn., 1866.

6. Mactaggart, op cit., pp 33-4.

7. B C L., B & W , MI/3/74, Breast in Campbellton Harbour.

8. Mactaggart, op. cit., p. 13.

9. B.C.L., B & W., MI/3/70, Drainage of Craigs Meadows and D. A. P., Bundle 534.

10. B.C.L., B & W., MI/3/68. Drainage of the Craigs Meadows and Campbellton Mills.

11. B. C. L., B. & W.,  MI/1/20, 11 June, 1773.

(to be continued)

No 42 Autumn 1997

Wee Drams

Page  2:   Military Echoes - Second World War Aircraft Crashes

Page  3:   Franciscan Converts in Kintyre - Part 2

Page  4:   Presbytery Minute: 14 July 1697 //  Genealogical Queries

Page  5:   Kintyre Lifeboats

Page  6:   Tides in the Waters of Moyle

Page  8:   By Hill and Shore - Part 2

Page  9:  The White Heather

The A.I.B. Stewart Page