Nor Loch

The Nor Loch was a man-made loch that once lay north of Edinburgh’s Old Town. It filled a hollow created by glacial erosion during the last Ice Age, with Castle Rock acting as a barrier to the ice. King James III ordered the hollow flooded in 1460 to strengthen the town’s defences. The loch was fed by the Tummel Burn, controlled by a sluice near Halkerston’s Wynd. It stretched where Princes Street Gardens and Waverley Station now stand. The loch served many purposes over the centuries. It acted as a defensive barrier during attacks, including the Wars of Scottish Independence and Jacobite risings. Offenders were ducked in its waters as punishment, and it became a site for suicides and smuggling. In 1624, eleven women were drowned in a single day, and in 1628, three siblings were thrown into the loch in a chest to drown. The loch’s polluted waters were never used for drinking, though wells nearby provided water for the castle. The Wellhouse Tower, built in 1362, once stood at the loch’s edge to protect a well supplying water to Edinburgh Castle. By the 17th century, the tower was in ruins, and little remains today. Draining began in the early 19th century under engineer James Jardine, transforming the area into Princes Street Gardens. Bones uncovered during railway construction hint at the loch’s past, while its name survives in local memory.