Loch Katrine

Loch Katrine is a long, narrow freshwater loch in the Trossachs, a wild stretch of the Scottish Highlands east of Loch Lomond. It lies mostly in Perthshire, though part of its northern shore marks the old boundary with Stirlingshire. The loch stretches about 13 kilometres from end to end and is never more than 1.6 kilometres wide. Strath Gartney runs the length of its southern side, carrying water from the surrounding hills into the River Forth. The loch is famous as the setting of Sir Walter Scott’s poem The Lady of the Lake and Rossini’s opera La donna del lago. It supplies drinking water to Glasgow, thirty miles to the south, through aqueducts built in the 19th century. Trout fishing is allowed from spring to autumn, and the heavily forested shores give the water its dark, Pictish name Katrine, meaning ‘gloomy place’. A single road runs along the northern shore, passing the Brenchoile hunting lodge and the small farms of Letter, Edra and Strone. At the eastern end, Trossachs Pier has a pier, a café and a gift shop. A cruise boat sails the length of the loch, giving views of Ellen’s Isle and Black Island. The water reaches depths of more than 150 metres in the central trench, and the surface stands 111 metres above sea level.