Loch Doon ( gd, Loch Dùin, ) 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 ...

Carrick, Scotland Carrick (Irish Gaelic) is a former ''comital'' district of Scotland which today forms part of South Ayrshire. History The district of Carrick originally formed part of the 11th- to 12th-century Kingdom of Galloway, whose lords ruled it until 11 ...

. The

River Doon The River Doon ( gd, Abhainn Dhùin, ) is a river in Ayrshire, Scotland. Its course is generally north-westerly, passing near to the town of Dalmellington, and through the villages of Patna, Dalrymple, and Alloway, birthplace of Robert Burns. ...

issues from its northern end, while the loch itself receives waters from Gala Lane and Loch Enoch (in the

Galloway Hills The Galloway Hills are part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland, and form the northern boundary of western Galloway. They lie within the bounds of the Galloway Forest Park, an area of some of largely uninhabited wild land, managed by Forestry an ...

) via Eglin Lane.

History

In the 13th century, it was a site of

Balloch Castle Balloch Castle is an early 19th-century country house situated at the southern tip of Loch Lomond, in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Balloch was a property of the Lennox family from the 11th century, and the old castle was built in the 13th centur ...

, owned by the Earls of Carrick. In the

Scottish Wars of Independence The Wars of Scottish Independence were a series of military campaigns fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of ...

it was held by one Gille Brighde, Sir Gilbert de Carrick, a native Carrick nobleman who surrendered it to the English. It was soon recovered by the Scots. In the 15th century, it was frequently in the hands of the Kennedy Clan, although it was briefly in the hands of the Maclellans (backed by

William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas, 2nd Earl of Avondale (1425 – 22 February 1452) was a late Medieval Scottish nobleman, Lord of Galloway, and Lord of the Regality of Lauderdale, and the most powerful magnate in Southern Scotland. He was kil ...

) after a siege in 1446. The

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

was destroyed in the 16th century by King

James V James V (10 April 1512 – 14 December 1542) was King of Scotland from 9 September 1513 until his death in 1542. He was crowned on 21 September 1513 at the age of seventeen months. James was the son of King James IV and Margaret Tudor, and duri ...

as part of a general policy of reducing the power of the barons. In the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, there was a growing need to train

pilots An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

and

aircrew Aircrew, also called flight crew, are personnel who operate an aircraft while in flight. The composition of a flight's crew depends on the type of aircraft, plus the flight's duration and purpose. Commercial aviation Flight deck positions ...

in aerial gunnery. Loch Doon was thought to be ideally suited for such an establishment with its surrounding steep hills being an ideal position for target

ranges In the Hebrew Bible and in the Old Testament, the word ranges has two very different meanings. Leviticus In Leviticus 11:35, ranges probably means a cooking furnace for two or more pots, as the Hebrew word here is in the dual number; or perhaps ...

. Work began in September 1916 and an

airfield An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

slipways A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving small ...

, piers,

jetties A jetty is a structure that projects from land out into water. A jetty may serve as a breakwater, as a walkway, or both; or, in pairs, as a means of constricting a channel. The term derives from the French word ', "thrown", signifying somet ...

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

hangars, tramways and other associated buildings erected. The remains of these can still be found on the Loch shore today. The loch was

dammed ''Dammed: The Politics of Loss and Survival in Anishinaabe Territory'' is a 2020 book by Brittany Luby, Associate Professor of History at the University of Guelph. The book charts the impacts of the damming of the Winnipeg River in the Lake of ...

in the 1930s, raising the water some to provide seasonal storage for the

Galloway hydro-electric power scheme The Galloway hydro-electric power scheme is a network of dams and hydro-electric power stations in Galloway, south west Scotland. It was built between 1930 and 1936. The generating stations draw water from the River Ken, River Dee and River D ...

. As a reservoir, Loch Doon has an effective capacity of over 82 million cubic metres. When rainfall is plentiful, water is diverted to the loch from the Water of Deugh via a tunnel system. When water is required for power generation, water is released at Drumjohn to feed Kendoon power reservoir, the first in a series of generating stations and

reservoirs 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 control ...

on the

Water of Ken The Water of Ken is a river in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Galloway, south-west Scotland. It rises on Blacklorg Hill, north-east of Cairnsmore of Carsphairn in the Carsphairn hills, and flows south-westward into The Glenkens, ...

. During construction work, the ruins of the castle were moved from an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the Loch to the shore to avoid the rising water.

Air crashes

Two

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

are known to have crashed in or near the Loch in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. On 18 March 1944 F/O Roswell Murray MacTavish of 439 Squadron,

Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...

was on a training flight from

RAF Heathfield RAF Heathfield, sometimes known as RAF Ayr/Heathfield due to its proximity to Glasgow Prestwick Airport, which was also used by military flights, is a former Royal Air Force station. Like many other wartime airfields, its runways were of the ...

in Hawker Hurricane Mk. IV LD564 when it crashed into the forest beside the loch. MacTavish was killed and is buried in Ayr Cemetery. Remains of the aircraft, including its

Rolls-Royce Merlin The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was later ...

engine, are still at the crash site.

Loch Doon Spitfire

On 25 October 1941 F/O František Hekl of

No. 312 (Czechoslovak) Squadron RAF No. 312 Squadron RAF was a Czechoslovak-manned fighter squadron of the Royal Air Force in the Second World War. History The squadron was formed at Duxford on 29 August 1940. It was crewed mostly by escaped Czechoslovak pilots, but its first c ...

crashed a Spitfire Mk IIA into the loch on a solo training flight from RAF Heathfield. The Spitfire was serial number P7540, carrying the marking DU-W. An eyewitness saw the Spitfire flying low over the surface of the loch when Hekl banked the aircraft to starboard and its starboard wingtip caught the water surface. Hekl lost control and the aircraft broke up and sank, leaving only a patch of oil on the water. An RAF salvage crew brought a boat and spent several days trawling parts of the bed of the loch, but failed to find either the aircraft or Hekl's body. In 1977 the Dumfries branch of the

Scottish Sub Aqua Club The Scottish Sub Aqua Club (ScotSAC) was founded in Glasgow in 1953. Today it is a company limited by guarantee with nearly 70 branches and 1200 members. ScotSAC instructors provide scuba diving training to branch members on an amateur basis ...

began a systematic search of the bed of the loch in the area where an eyewitness thought the aircraft had crashed. In 1979 several clubs from the Northern Federation of British Sub-Aqua Clubs joined the search, and Blackpool Sub-Aqua Club took over organisation of the project. The search was unsuccessful so in 1982 it was moved to a different area of the loch, where divers quickly found the Spitfire's tail and rear part of the fuselage. In subsequent dives other parts of the aircraft were found, scattered over a distance of 200 metres. Both wings were badly damaged, magnesium parts such as the undercarriage wheels had corroded away, but the Merlin Mk XII engine was recovered in good condition. Hekl's body was not found. The wreckage was moved to

Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum The Dumfries and Galloway Aviation Museum is a volunteer-operated aviation museum located in and around the World War II-era watch tower (control tower) at the former RAF Dumfries, located two miles north east of the centre of Dumfries, Scotlan ...

, where the aircraft was slowly restored and a pair of replica wings fitted. Restoration to non-flying condition was completed in 2017.

References

External links

Pictures of Loch Doon

– Video footage of Loch Doon or Balliol Castle. {{DEFAULTSORT:Doon Lochs of South Ayrshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Wigtown and Stewartry Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cumnock and Kyle Protected areas of South Ayrshire Freshwater lochs of Scotland Lakes of South Ayrshire

History

Air crashes

Loch Doon Spitfire

See also

References

External links