Fintry Past
Carron Valley & Endrick
The Carron valley is often described in old writings of Fintry as a beautiful meadow and a major part of Fintry’s rural landscape.
A drought across the whole of Britain in 1933-34 caused huge alarm. There was 70% less rainfall.
Permission was given to raise the safe yield of water from 5.25 million gallons per day to 17.5 million gallons in the Falkirk and Stirling areas. This required building the largest artificial impounding reservoir of its time in Britain: The Carron Valley Reservoir.
It is about 3.5 miles long and 1.5 miles wide. It covers 940 acres and has a capacity of 4.300 million gallons. The main work was the building of a dam over the river Carron and subsidiary dam over the river Endrick. Three miles of pipe connected the dam to the mains water.
Flooded Hamlet
Houses on the bed of the reservoir were flooded and new homes built nearby. The original public road of 1.5 miles was also flooded and rebuilt at a higher level.
The reservoir was opened on 14th July 1939 by John Colville, Secretary of State for Scotland. The cost was £230,000. It is now operated by Scottish Water and is a popular destination for cycling, walking, fishing and bird watching.
Conservation Status
The River Endrick flows from here for 20 miles through Fintry and on into Loch Lomond. The Designated Special Area of Conservation (SAC) status of the Endrick is due to the presence of important populations of brook lamprey, river lamprey and Atlantic salmon. The river lamprey are of particular importance because, unlike other populations which migrate to the sea, they remain in freshwater as adults, feeding on freshwater fish in Loch Lomond. This is the only instance of this unusual behavioural trait recorded in the UK.
Pictures provided by courtesy of Stirling Council Archives