Loch Thom

The largest of a beautiful group of reservoirs in Inverclyde, now forming part of the Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park, and named after the civil engineer Robert Thom (1774 - 1847). He designed the scheme which created the reservoir and has provided Greenock with water from 1827 to the present day! On a personal level, this whole area fills me with memories as I used to come up here from Greenock many a time in my teenage years - I learnt to drive on the country roads around Loch Thom too.

An old map showing the position of the reservoirs. Of course, for years there has been a network of minor roads around the banks.

Below: some of my photos from October 2008, taken from the most southerly point of Loch Thom, looking north:

Geoffrey soaking up the atmosphere
(we were soaked by heavy rain a little earlier - the weather was very changeable)

The road and bridge over the southern tip of Loch Thom

(I shall include a short video showing the north end in my next blog!)

Evening drawing on and the light beginning to go

An interesting (Wikipedia) page about Loch Thom is found here

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"Just for the sake of recovering
I walked back from forty-six
Quick years of age wanting to see,
And managed not to trip or stumble
To find Loch Thom and turned round
To see the stretch of my childhood
Before me. Here is the loch. The same
Long-beaked cry curls across
The heather-edges of the water held
Between the hills a boyhood's walk
Up from Greenock. It is the morning.

And I am here with my mammy's
Bramble jam scones in my pocket.
The Firth is miles and I have come
Back to find Loch Thom maybe
In this light does not recognize me.

This is a lonely freshwater loch.
No farms on the edge. Only
Heather grouse-moor stretching
Down to Greenock
Or stretching away across
Into the blue moors of Ayrshire."

Part of the poem, "Loch Thom" by W. S. Graham
(More about him here)