BILL McALLISTER: The River Ness is so beautiful it is hard to imagine that 190 years ago it was so polluted it was the source of a cholera outbreak
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TWO centuries ago, most people relied on the Ness for drinking water, despite the river being polluted by discharge from tanneries and breweries, as well as human waste. This year is the 190th anniversary of a cholera outbreak triggered by water pollution.
Then, 197 years ago next month, the burgh, or at least part of it, gained its first public water supply – a major milestone.
The Inverness Gas and Water Company was formed in 1824 by businessmen investing £12,000. By 1829 a pumping system diverted water from a weir at Ness Islands up 1300 yards, via a waterwheel, to a cast iron tank in Old Edinburgh Road, 100 feet higher up – and then gravity whisked the water through the pipes to Castle Street and Bridge Street!
Within another five years, however, the company was actually rationing water because the cost of installing pipes to new customers was increasingly financially unviable. You could say it wasn’t washing its face! It was noted railway engineer Joseph Mitchell, of Viewhill House, who created the first basic sewers for Inverness Town Council in 1831, a £6000 investment that, like the first fresh water, only supplied homes east of the river, where most people lived.
Inverness grew significantly in the 19th century, fuelled by the arrival of railways, demand for water increasing. Local firms Falcon Iron Works, Ness Iron Works and Rose Street Foundry produced cast iron pipes as supply reached other parts of town.
The Gas and Water Company spent £1000 in 1864 on a larger tank at Old Edinburgh Road, holding up to 40,000 gallons. The far-sighted Mitchell, however, became the first to suggest using Loch Ashie as a major new resource. Merkinch had a water mains by the early 1870s, with west of the river similarly benefiting as a result of Sir Alexander Ross’s housing expansion projects.
In 1875, under the Inverness Water and Gas Act, the Town Council bought out the company and secured a £25,000 government loan to help build new water works.
Mitchell’s advice was taken and in October 1875, work began on inserting 110 tons of cast iron to build a waste weir at Loch Ashie, raising the level by two feet, with the creation of a service reservoir four miles away at Oldtown Farm, above the current Inverness Royal Academy.
The pipeline across boggy moorland brought the loch water to Oldtown, whose reservoir could hold seven million gallons, from where a 12-inch diameter pipe channelled it to and through the town.
In December 1877 Mrs Simpson, the Provost’s wife, turned on the tap at Oldtown in a ceremony to mark the new facilities.
Water loss through pipe leaks became an issue and when Loch Ashie could not send enough, water had to be extracted from Holm Burn. By 1896, it was clear Loch Ashie’s intake would not be enough and there were health concerns over the Holm Burn quality. In 1900, increased Loch Ashie volume was used to flush out the drains following a measles epidemic. Increasingly, however, officials looked at Loch Duntelchaig and in 1929 a limited amount of its water was allowed to be extracted.
Documents from 990 years ago refer to the Mill of Kilvean, which later became the Bught Meal Mill, where Whin Park now stands. This was where a hydro scheme, using the widened mill lade, was set up in 1929, to extend the burgh water supply. Today, you can buy an ice cream in the Whin Park shop which is in the old power house…
Further extraction rights from Duntelchaig were granted in 1948, with so much difficulty in securing workers for the exposed location that they were provided with hot lunches!
Today, via Scottish Water and the latest technology, the two lochs continue to funnel their waters to our city, available on tap, helping to sustain people and grow the city.
n Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodge
