View attachment 26007
View attachment 26008
Pic of the day inspired by
@Blademonkey - Victorian engineering on a grand scale. Two views of the Blackwater reservoir above Kinlochleven, central Highlands. Built to provide power - via turbines - to an aluminum smelter down below in Kinlochleven. Still working it now feeds into the national grid. Constructed 1904 - 1909 (Granted - that's not strictly Victorian time-wise but the ethos I think is the same) it's the last huge scale civil engineering project in Britain that was done entirely without any machinery - other than humans and Dynamite. Picks and shovels. When you approach the dam from a distance you get no idea of the scale until the last minute - it's just under a full kilometer across. There were up to 3,000 navvies on the project at anyone time. Not just Irish but a lot of impoverished and displaced Highlanders as well. A life of scarcely imaginable brutality- an incredibly high casualty rate. There's a very good book by a guy that worked on the dam - 'Children of the Dead End' by Patrick MacGill. Hard to find in print but worth it. Only slightly fictionalised.
The second picture - me and my best mate setting out to cross the dam - has a nice back story. When they flooded the Blackwater glen after construction people - granted, not that many - lost their homes and were relocated locally. One of whom was the chief game stalker for the estate - the great great grandfather of the guy walking in front of me in the picture. The estate built his forbear a new house for the family - including the nine kids - that is now the Staoineag M.B.A bothy. Few of the children stayed on locally in their adulthood. One rose to some prominence in the British Hong Kong police service. Sorry - that was the longest picture caption in history. cheers - I. Oh forgot - Leica and 35mm - Agfa APX I think.