Crinan () is a small village located on the west coast of Scotland in the region known as

Knapdale Knapdale (, ) forms a rural district of Argyll and Bute in the Scottish Highlands, adjoining Kintyre to the south, and divided from the rest of Argyll to the north by the Crinan Canal. It includes two parishes, North Knapdale and South Knapdale. ...

, which is part of

Argyll and Bute Argyll and Bute (; , ) is one of 32 unitary authority, unitary council areas of Scotland, council areas in Scotland and a lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The current lord-lieutenant for Argyll and Bute is Jane Margaret MacLeod ...

. Before the

Crinan Canal The Crinan Canal is a Canals of the United Kingdom, navigable canal in Argyll and Bute, west of Scotland. It opened in 1801 and connects the village of Ardrishaig on Loch Gilp with Crinan, Argyll, Crinan on the Sound of Jura, providing a navi ...

was built, Crinan was named Port Righ which meant the king's port. The canal was named from the small settlement of Crinan Ferry on the edge of

Loch Crinan Loch Crinan is a seawater loch on the West of Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern p ...

where a small ferry landed. The name Crinan probably derives from the Creones tribe who lived in the area in 140 AD. The canal starts at

Ardrishaig Ardrishaig () is a coastal village on Loch Gilp, at the southern (eastern) entrance to the Crinan Canal in Argyll and Bute in the west of Scotland. It lies immediately to the south of Lochgilphead, with the nearest larger town being Oban. Hi ...

sea loch on

Loch Gilp Loch Gilp () is a small inlet on Loch Fyne, Argyll and Bute, west of Scotland. The loch gives its name to the nearby town of Lochgilphead. The Crinan Canal extends from the loch ''Loch'' ( ) is a word meaning "lake" or "inlet, sea inle ...

, and ends away at Crinan sea loch on the

Sound of Jura The Sound of Jura () is a Sound in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is one of the several Sounds of Scotland. It is to the east of the island of Jura and the west of Knapdale, in the north of the Kintyre Peninsula, of the Scottish mainland. ...

. The canal was designed to provide a short cut between the west coast and islands at one end and the Clyde estuary at the other, and so avoid the long voyage around the south end of the

Kintyre Peninsula Kintyre (, ) is a peninsula in western Scotland, in the southwest of Argyll and Bute. The peninsula stretches about , from the Mull of Kintyre in the south to East and West Loch Tarbert in the north. The region immediately north of Kintyre is ...

. By the canal basin is a coffee shop and the nearby

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

and looks out across Loch Crinan to Duntrune Castle. Crinan Post Office is in the old Harbour House. Crinan Boatyard provides services and facilities for commercial and leisure boaters. A

scallop Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve molluscs in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related famili ...

farming business operates from the loch. The Crinan Wood is home to

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

s and 24 species of bird. Parts of the TV series '' The Tales of Para Handy'' were filmed here. Named after Loch Crinan, Crinanite was a varietal name for the rock type analcime olivine dolerite or gabbro. It is composed essentially of olivine, titanaugite (pyroxene) and labradorite (feldspar) with minor analcime. The term encapsulated a suite of northwest-trending analcime dolerite dykes which are quite extensive in Argyllshire, centred on Loch Crinan.

References

External links

Villages in Knapdale {{Argyll-geo-stub