Sput Dubh

Sput Dubh stands on the eastern shore of Loch Katrine in the Trossachs, where steep Highland slopes drop straight into the loch. The falls are small but dramatic, plunging over a narrow lip of rock into a deep plunge pool below. Local people once used the Gaelic word ‘sput’ for this kind of narrow, forceful fall, and ‘dubh’ for the dark water that swirls in the pool after rain. The name appears on old maps and in local speech long before it reached wider guides. Highland waterfalls like this one are counted in their hundreds across the region, where the hard rock and heavy rainfall create ideal conditions for falls of all sizes. Some of the tallest single drops in Scotland are found in these glens, though many claims are hard to verify once the exact measurement is checked. Visitors reach the falls by following a rough path from the lochside road. The short walk leads through birch and oak woodland where ferns grow thick on the damp ground. At the viewpoint the water can be heard before it comes into sight, tumbling over the dark lip into the pool below. The air is always cool and damp near the fall, and the rock around the plunge pool is stained black by the water’s constant flow.