The Muckle Spate was a great flood in August 1829, which devastated much of

Strathspey Strathspey may refer to one of the following: * Strathspey, Scotland, an area in the Highlands of Scotland * Strathspey Camanachd Strathspey Camanachd is a shinty club based in Grantown-on-Spey, Strathspey, Scotland, currently competing in the ...

, in the north east of Scotland. (Muckle is a word for 'much' or 'great', chiefly used in North East England and Scotland.) It began raining on the evening of 2 August 1829, and continued into the next day when a

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are some ...

broke over the

Cairngorms The Cairngorms ( gd, Am Monadh Ruadh) are a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland closely associated with the mountain Cairn Gorm. The Cairngorms became part of Scotland's second national park (the Cairngorms National Park) on 1 S ...

. To the south, the River Dee rose rapidly above its normal level - 15 ft (4.6 m) in places (27 ft at Banchory). The Rivers

Nairn Nairn (; gd, Inbhir Narann) is a town and royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is an ancient fishing port and market town around east of Inverness, at the point where the River Nairn enters the Moray Firth. It is the tradi ...

Findhorn Findhorn ( gd, Inbhir Èir or ''Inbhir Èireann'') is a village in Moray, Scotland. It is located on the eastern shore of Findhorn Bay and immediately south of the Moray Firth. Findhorn is 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Kinloss, and about 5 ...

, Lossie and Spey were affected, to the north.

Damage

As well as flooding, many bridges were washed away, including those over the

Linn of Dee The River Dee ( gd, Uisge Dhè) is a river in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It rises in the Cairngorms and flows through southern Aberdeenshire to reach the North Sea at Aberdeen. The area it passes through is known as Deeside, or Royal Deeside in ...

and Linn of Quoich. The original

Mar Lodge Mar Lodge is a sporting lodge to the west of Braemar and the principal building on the Mar Lodge Estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It was built in 1895, replacing an earlier building, by Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife. Location Mar Lodge i ...

was affected.

Carrbridge Carrbridge ( sco, Carrbrig, gd, Drochaid Chàrr) is a village in Badenoch and Strathspey in the Scottish Highlands. It lies off the A9 on the A938, west of Skye of Curr and southeast of Tomatin, near Bogroy. It has the oldest stone bridge i ...

's most famous landmark, the old bridge, built in 1717, from which the village is named was severely damaged and left in the condition we see today. Homes were lost in Kingston, Moray, a small village on the Moray Firth coast, at the mouth of the River Spey. Five

fishing boats rescued residents trapped by the floods on the plain of

Forres Forres (; gd, Farrais) is a town and former royal burgh in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately northeast of Inverness and west of Elgin. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions. There a ...

. Across the north-east between six and eight individuals lost their lives, 22 bridges and 60 houses were destroyed and 600 families were made homeless. The Muckle Spate is remembered in a poem of the same name by David Grant, written circa 1851, describing the effect on the parish of Strachan.

River Findhorn

The spate was a natural disaster unparalleled in the historic record of the north-east of Scotland described as one of "the most severe catastrophic floods in modern UK history". Based on the eyewitness accounts recorded by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder it has been possible to estimate peak flows down the main river of up to 1,484 m3/sec and 451 m3/sec on its tributary the Divie. It is at Randolph's Leap that the Findhorn river is at its most spectacular in spate. Here there are two markers indicating the height the river reached in 1829 and it is said that the butler at nearby Relugas caught a

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus ''Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Oncorhy ...

above the normal river level in his

umbrella An umbrella or parasol is a folding canopy supported by wooden or metal ribs that is usually mounted on a wooden, metal, or plastic pole. It is designed to protect a person against rain or sunlight. The term ''umbrella'' is traditionally use ...

Footnotes

Sources

* * * Floods in Scotland Badenoch and Strathspey 1829 floods 1829 in Scotland {{Scotland-hist-stub