River Ness

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Ness, a river carrying off the surplus water of the drainage basin of Loch Ness. As noticed below, it issues from the NE end of Loch Dochfour over a weir, constructed to keep the water of the loch at a proper height for the Caledonian Canal, and has from this a course of about 7 miles, nearly parallel to the line of the Canal, till it reaches the Moray Firth below Inverness. The channel has a regular inclination over a gravelly bottom, and the stream is about 180 feet wide, with a mean depth in summer of about 3 feet, and in winter of often double that amount. The lower part of its course is noticed in the article on Inverness. It is an excellent salmon river, and the fishing season lasts from 10 Feb. to 15 Oct.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer