Water Supply

With the light easterly continuing and the weather remaining dry we walked up the track which leads east from the Sanna road to visit Kilchoan's water supply. All Kichoan's water comes from one source, a small burn called Abhainn Chro Bheinn, abhainn being a river and bheinn a hill - I can't find a translation for chro. The stream - it's hardly a river - flows west from Ardnamurchan Estate onto Kilchoan Township's common grazing.
The water intake is at a small weir, the water no more than a few inches deep, surrounded by a low fence, enough to prevent the township's sheep, which see any fence as a challenge, getting into the pool and dying there.

From the weir it runs through a pipe to the treatment works.

Kilchoan's water delivery system, from the treatment works to the mains piping, was completely renewed a few years ago but this didn't prevent us having problems over the cold weather at Christmas, when so many pipes burst in the village that the water supply nearly dried up. Before the new treatment works was installed, the water frequently came out of the taps the colour of whisky.

An Ordnance Survey map showing location of the water treatment works is here.