The Road to Plocaig

The 1920 Ordnance Survey map of West Ardnamurchan does not show the road to the northwest of Achnaha heading for Sanna, as it does today. Instead it stays on the right bank of the Allt Sanna, and ends at what is now the ruined village of Plocaig.

There is evidence for this on the present 1:25,000 map (see version of it here), because a footpath is marking branching off from the Sanna road. It's easy to access this footpath as, just after the Achnaha worked land is passed, there's a parking place on the left, the path starting a few metres beyond it.

We walked this old road to Plocaig this morning. The first section, the part marked on the map, is easy to follow (see picture above)....

....until it crosses the tributary of the Allt Sanna, which is done across these stepping stones. Beyond here, the old track disappears, though there are places where one can guess it probably passed.

It's easier to trace the track along its last section, after it crosses this old wall and enters the croft land around Plocaig - seen in the distance.

It wasn't the new road - the present tarmac road - to Sanna, built in the 1940s, which killed Plocaig, and the village wasn't cleared. A picture in the ownership of Catriona MacMillan which is now on the West Ardnamurchan Vintage Photographs site, here, shows that, in 1932, the village was already dying. Now, all that remains of most of the stone-built houses are the walls.

The house in this picture was the last one to be occupied, with its rendered walls and gable-end chimneys. One of the chimneys has already fallen, and the other looks as if it might go at any time.

So, what happened that caused Plocaig to die?