Alemoor Loch, also known as Alemoor Reservoir, is a small

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

in the Scottish Borders area of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. It is situated on the

Ale Water The Ale Water is a tributary of the River Teviot, in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. It rises at Henwoodie Hill and flows through Alemoor Loch. It meets the Teviot south of the village of Ancrum, and it runs through Ashkirk and Lilli ...

, west of

Hawick Hawick ( ; sco, Haaick; gd, Hamhaig) is a town in the Scottish Borders council area and historic county of Roxburghshire in the east Southern Uplands of Scotland. It is south-west of Jedburgh and south-south-east of Selkirk. It is one ...

. The loch is approximately long, and is divided in two by a causeway which carries the B711 road. In the 19th century, the loch was recorded as being round in shape, across, and up to deep. The loch was said to be the home of a "water-cow" or

kelpie A kelpie, or water kelpie (Scottish Gaelic: ''Each-Uisge''), is a shape-shifting spirit inhabiting lochs in Scottish folklore. It is usually described as a black horse-like creature, able to adopt human form. Some accounts state that the kelpi ...

, and another tradition told of a child being carried off by an eagle and dropped into the loch.

John Leyden John Caspar Leyden, M.D., (8 September 1775 – 28 August 1811) was a Scottish indologist. Biography Leyden was born at Denholm on the River Teviot, not far from Hawick. His father, a shepherd, had contrived to send him to Edinburgh Univers ...

(1775–1811) mentioned the darker associations of the loch in his 1803 poem ''Scenes of Infancy''. In the 1960s a dam was constructed and the loch was enlarged to its present size. An existing farmhouse was not removed, and its chimney pots can be seen in when the water level is extremely low. The loch is now used for

coarse fishing In Britain and Ireland, coarse fishing (, ) refers to angling for rough fish, which are fish species traditionally considered undesirable as a food or game fish. Freshwater game fish are all salmonids — most particularly salmon, trout and ch ...

, with the main species being

pike Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to: Fish * Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus'' * Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes * ''Esox'', genus of ...

perch Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Per ...

and roach. The remains of a tower at Wester Alemoor, which had formerly stood by the loch, were destroyed by a new road before 1962. A large flint blade was discovered by the loch in 2003.

References

{{Authority control Lochs of the Scottish Borders Reservoirs in the Scottish Borders

See also

References