The Rationalised Landscape

This photograph is of the Carlingwark Canal, now called the Carlingwark Lane (local word for slow flowing stream). It was constructed in 1765 and cuts an arrow straight course across the Carlingwark and Blackpark mosses. It is nearly two miles long.

It goes with the Charles Oppenheimer  paintings of concrete dams being built (see previous posts). The canal was built to carry marl (a lime rich clay used as fertiliser) from Carlingwark Loch to farms upstream along the Dee/ Ken river system.

Before the canal was cut this is what the landscape looked like.[Taken from National Library of Scotland online maps- Roy's 1755 military survey of Scotland]

Course of Carlingwark Burn.