Dullatur Bog is the source of the River Kelvin, an important wildlife site… and a headache for the engineer of the Forth & Clyde Canal.
Canal engineer John Smeaton believed he could cut the canal through the bog, at the same time filling it with water to prevent it from collapsing. He was disastrously wrong! The cut continued to fill up with slime, requiring more than 16.8m (55ft) of earth and stones to build up the banks and towpath. Even a stable disappeared into the bog.
While work progressed, the bodies of men and horses that had fled from the Battle of Kilsyth and perished in the bog were uncovered; and if that wasn’t enough to deal with, the work disturbed millions of frogs who spread like a Biblical plague over the countryside in search of a new home.
A story to make any angler of the Kelvin smile 🙂