Black Loch (NS 59057 161720) is a freshwater

loch ''Loch'' ( ) is a word meaning "lake" or "inlet, sea inlet" in Scottish Gaelic, Scottish and Irish Gaelic, subsequently borrowed into English. In Irish contexts, it often appears in the anglicized form "lough". A small loch is sometimes calle ...

, named from its dark waters, situated in the

East Ayrshire East Ayrshire (; ) is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. It shares borders with Dumfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. The headquarters of the council are located on London Roa ...

Council Area, between

Cumnock Cumnock (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cumnag'') is a town and former civil parish located in East Ayrshire, Scotland. The town sits at the confluence of the Glaisnock Water and the Lugar Water. There are three neighbouring housing projects which lie j ...

and

New Cumnock New Cumnock is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland. It expanded during the coal-mining era from the late 18th century, and mining remained its key industry until its pits were shut in the 1960s. The village is southeast of Cumnock, and east of ...

, lying in a glacial

Kettle Hole A kettle (also known as a kettle hole, kettlehole, or pothole) is a depression or hole in an outwash plain formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating ...

mainly within the Parish of New Cumnock, with a small portion protruding into Old Cumnock Parish. It is said to be one of only two lochs or lakes in the world that have outflows running to two separate destinations. The 'Runner' is a deep and broad ditch that was dug many years ago to link the three lochs of Lowes, Black, and Creoch.Captain Number 2
Retrieved : 2011-12-27

The loch

The Black Loch, just over 400 metres long, is the deepest of three linked lochs within the Parish of

. It is unusual in that its northerly outflow is into the Glaisnock Water, flowing into the

Lugar Water The Lugar Water, or River Lugar, is created by the confluence of the Bellow Water and the Glenmuir Water, just north of Lugar, both of which flow from the hills of the Southern Uplands in East Ayrshire, Scotland. Course Source to Cumnock The ...

and the

River Ayr The River Ayr (pronounced like ''air'', ''Uisge Àir'' in Gaelic) is a river in Ayrshire, Scotland. At it is the longest river in the county. The river was held as sacred by pre-Christian cultures. The remains of several prehistoric sacrificial ...

, finally emptying into the

Firth of Clyde The Firth of Clyde, is the estuary of the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The Firth has some of the deepest coastal waters of the British Isles. The Firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre, Kintyre Peninsula. The ...

, while the southerly outflow runs into the

River Nith The River Nith (; Common Brittonic: ''Nowios'') is a river in south-west Scotland. The Nith rises in the Carsphairn hills of East Ayrshire, between Prickeny Hill and Enoch Hill, east of Dalmellington. For the majority of its course it flows ...

and thence into the

Solway Firth The Solway Firth is an inlet on the west coast of Great Britain, forming part of the border between England and Scotland. The firth (a Scottish term for an inlet of the sea) divides Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) from Dumfries and Gallow ...

. The Segsy Burn is a minor inflow from the north-west, and the Polquhap enters at the north-west, rising from Glaisnock Moss. McMichael records that in wet weather the three lochs combined as one and suggests that until the trap dyke on the River Nith below Corsancone Hill wore down, the Cum Loch covered the whole area as far as the watershed at Sannock Hill and had a shape and surface area similar to

Loch Doon Loch Doon (, ) is a freshwater loch in Carrick, Scotland. It is considered relatively oligotrophic. The River Doon issues from its northern end, while the loch itself receives waters from Gala Lane and Loch Enoch (in the Galloway Hills) via Eg ...

Cartographic evidence

Robert Gordon of Straloch, Robert Gordon's map of 1636-52 shows only a single loch in the area with an outflow only, running into the River Nith. Blaeu's map of 1654, based on the earlier map by Timothy Pont, also shows a single loch named Loch of the Lowis (sic), however a Black Loch 'section' is recorded at the northern end.Blaeu's Map
Retrieved : 2011-12-27 John Adair's map of 1685 shows a single 'L of Lon'. Roy's map of 1747 does not show Black Loch, however it is clearly marked on Armstrong's map of 1775, with two islands erroneously indicated. Thomson's 1832 map shows three additional minor inflows.

Lairds of Boreland

The loch lay within the Lands of Boreland, held by the Hamilton family since circa late 14th to early 15th centuries. A George Hailton of Boreland was the second son of Sir David Hamilton of Cadzow. The family held the lands until in 1669 Hugh Hamilton of Boreland left the lands to his grand-daughter Margaret, the heiress of this cadet branch of the family. Hugh Montgomerie of Shaw Monument, Prestwickshaws, a descendant of the Earl of Eglinton, Eglinton Montgomeries, married Margaret and sold his lands of Prestwickshaws to one Robert Wallace. The Montgomeries of Boreland held these lands until 1751 when the property passed to the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, who sold it to various parties. In 1790 the lands were purchased by the Earl of Dumfries, however by the 1860s the lands were owned by the Marquis of Bute.

Uses

The Blackloch Burn, controlled by a sluice at the loch's northerly outflow, ran as a lade to the site of the old Borland Mill and its millpond. By 1895 the OS map shows the millpond in use a reservoir only and the loch with marginal vegetation around its periphery.

Micro-history

The Earl of Dumfries proposed to make a 'cut' from the

in New Cumnock through the Loch o' th' Lowes, New Cumnock, Loch o' th' Lowes and Creoch Loch to the Black Loch in order to provide a supply of water to power a factory he intended to build on the Glaisnock Water. This would have resulted in part of the waters of the River Nith flowing onto the Clyde rather than the Solway Firth, Solway, however the development was never carried to fruition.Warrick, Page 11 Fanciful imagination has pictured a trout swimming up the River Ayr, passing into the Lugar Water at Barskimming, entering the Black Loch via the Glaisnock Water and thence into the Black Loch. The second outflow from the loch would carry the trout into Creoch Loch, then into the Loch o' th' Lowes, the River Nith and finally into the Solway Firth after a journey of around seventy miles.Warrick, Page 10

References

Notes

Sources

* Love, Dane (2003). ''Ayrshire : Discovering a County''. Ayr : Fort Publishing. . * McMichael, George. ''Notes on the Way Through Ayrshire''. Ayr : Hugh Henry. * James Paterson (journalist), Paterson, James (1863–66). ''History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton. II - Kyle''. Edinburgh: J. Stillie. * Warrick, John (1899). ''The History of Old Cumnock.'' Reprint. Cumnock : Carn Publishing.

External links

Video footage of the Black Loch.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Black Loch, New Cumnock Lochs of East Ayrshire History of East Ayrshire Former lochs Freshwater lochs of Scotland