Lindores Loch is a freshwater

loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots language, Scots and Irish language, Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is Cognate, cognate with the Manx language, Manx lough, Cornish language, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh language, Welsh w ...

, situated in North

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

in the Parish of

Abdie Abdie is a parish in north-west Fife, Scotland, lying on the south shore of the Firth of Tay on the eastern outskirts of Newburgh, extending about 3 miles eastwards to the boundary of Dunbog parish,Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, by Francis Groom ...

, in the

Central Belt The Central Belt of Scotland is the area of highest population density within Scotland. Depending on the definition used, it has a population of between 2.4 and 4.2 million (the country's total was around 5.4 million in 2019), including Great ...

of Scotland. The Loch has for many years been used as a fishery and is well known for its abundant fish life. A

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

pond is situated on the Northern shoreline and is nominally used by the Abdie Curling Club and Abdie ladies Curling Club. A speculative study suggests that the loch was created by glacial deposits from the surrounding

Ochil Hills The Ochil Hills (; gd, Monadh Ochail is a range of hills in Scotland north of the Forth valley bordered by the towns of Stirling, Alloa, Kinross, Auchterarder and Perth. The only major roads crossing the hills pass through Glen Devon/ Glen ...

at the end of the last ice-age. The water level and shoreline have changed over time due to roads, railway, sluice gate and farmland.

Natural history

Lindores Loch is a protected

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

(SSSI) and is designated for the flora and fauna of its wetlands and open water habitats. Specifically its high diversity of pondweeds (

potamogeton ''Potamogeton'' is a genus of aquatic, mostly freshwater, plants of the family Potamogetonaceae. Most are known by the common name pondweed, although many unrelated plants may be called pondweed, such as Canadian pondweed (''Elodea canadensis'' ...

), large area of

reed bed A reedbed or reed bed is a natural habitat found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions and estuaries. Reedbeds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As ...

wet woodland A wet woodland is a type of plant community. It is a biodiversity habitat in the United Kingdom as part of the British National Vegetation Classification system. Wet woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or i ...

and notable birds. There are also two rare species of water beetle recorded at this site.

Geography

The loch is nestled in the Ochil Hills between Woodmill Hill to the west and Dunboghill to the East and Kinnaird Hill to the North. The water stretches from the village of

Lindores Lindores is a small village in Fife, Scotland, in the parish of Abdie, about 2 miles south-east of Newburgh. It is situated on the north-east shore of Lindores Loch, a 44 ha freshwater loch. A possible derivation of the name ''Lindores'' is 'c ...

southwards for a distance of 1.3 km. It is a shallow loch with a maximum depth of 3m.

History

The old Abdie Parish Church ruins are close to the north shoreline. The ruins of Inchrye House, a grand Victorian Gothic house to which estate the loch once belonged, lay to the East. The rail line between

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

and

Ladybank Ladybank () is a village and former burgh of Fife, Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh, southwest of Cupar, close to the River Eden. Its 2006 population was estimated at 1,582. History Before the 18th century, this area was mostly marshl ...

is located on the west shoreline. The loch was an important source of water for powering mills in the Lindores valley, where up to 13 mills of various types operated from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century. In 1617 armed vandals destroyed two mills belonging to Sir Michael Balfour of Denmilne by demolishing the dam. A rare mid-1860s

curling house A curling house was used to store curling stones, brushes and other equipment used to maintain a curling pond and play the game of curling in Scotland and elsewhere. Introduction The houses were often purely functional in character, being relat ...

survives here, once used by the Abdie Curling Club to store its members curling stones and other equipment.

Culture

The area near Lindores Loch is mentioned in Sir

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...

's play

Macduff's Cross MacDuff's Cross, also known as the Cross of MacDuff or Ninewells, is the remains of an ancient white sandstone monument, located on a historic site between Lindores and Newburgh in Fife, Scotland. Robert Sibbald suggested the date of its construc ...

: :'You do gaze— :Strangers are wont to do so—on the prospect. :Yon is the Tay, rolled down from Highland hills, :That rests his waves, after so rude a race, :In the fair plains of Gowrie. :—Further westward, :Proud Stirling rises. :—Yonder to the east :Dundee, the gift of God, and fair Montrose, :And still more northward, lie the ancient towers :Of Edzell.' Many travel guides and books have mentioned the beauty of the area and loch: 'Lindores Loch is a beautiful sheet of water, nearly a mile in length. It is frequented by wild ducks, and abounds with perch and pike. The neighbouring scenery is picturesque.' '...in this small spot nature has crowded together all that can delight the eye, and elevate the imagination.'

References

{{Reflist Lochs of Fife