Stratha'an or Strathavon is the valley of the River Avon, (pronounced "River A'an""Fishing the Avon". Ballindalloch Highland Estate. Retrieved 27 July 2024.), in the Strathspey area of Moray, Scotland.
The upper reaches of the valley, which is long all told,"Longest Scottish Rivers". Almanac of Scotland Retrieved 11 August 2024. are at Loch A'an in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park and the river only leaves the eastern edge of the Park about from its confluence with the Spey near Ballindalloch. The largest settlement in the strath is the village of Tomintoul.
The geology of the area is much influenced by the Caledonian mountain building era that began during the Ordovician period nearly 500 million years ago.
Stratha'an as a provincial lordship was first recorded in the late 12th century. Map-making of the strath commenced in the late 16th century but it was not until the 19th century that truly accurate maps were created. Many of the place names are influenced by the Scottish Gaelic language. There are numerous archaeological sites listed by Historic Environment Scotland's database from both the historic and prehistoric eras along the whole length of the valley. Tourism, agriculture, forestry and whisky distilling dominate the local economy. Notable literary references include a poem Nan Shepherd wrote about Loch A'an in the 1930s.
The wildlife is fairly typical of the Cairngorms and surrounding area, although unusual in a UK context. For example, Britain's only free-ranging herd of reindeer roam on the hills in the upper strath. The vegetation of the middle reaches of the valley is dominated by the purple-flowering heather Calluna vulgaris.
Etymology
The names in the strath are influenced by Scottish Gaelic. In common with various other examples of "Avon", the river (and hence the strath) takes its name from the Gaelic meaning 'river' or 'stream'. The word, in common with the Welsh afon, is thought to originate from an early Indo-European root ab or aub or early British abone.Ross, D. 2001 Scottish Place-names Birlinn, Edinburgh Whatever the exact derivation, all agree that the name has the tautological meaning of "River River" and Strath A'an is thus "Valley of the River".
The village of Tomintoul is from meaning "the hillock with the barn", the hamlet of Ballindalloch is meaning "the farm at the haugh" (a haugh being a low-lying meadow by a river) and Inchrory from is "Roderick's meadow".
Geology
The majority of the rocks within the Cairngorms National Park belong to the Dalradian Supergroup, a thick sequence of sands, muds and limestones that were deposited between about 800 and 600 million years ago on the margins of the former continent of Laurentia. These rocks were intensely faulted, folded and metamorphosed during the Caledonian Orogeny between about 490 and 430 million years ago.
The subsequent collision of Baltica with Laurentia involved further folding and faulting of the Dalradian rock sequence and large plutons of granite rose up amongst the Dalradian rocks and then cooled in situ. The largest of these plutons is the granite mass which forms the Cairngorm mountains themselves. An outlier of Devonian Lower Old Red Sandstone occurs around the Tomintoul areaBritish Geological Survey 1996 ‘’Glenlivet’’. Scotland Sheet 75W Solid geology 1:50,000 (Keyworth, Nottingham: BGS) and there is a small outcrop of limestone at Inchrory in Glen Avon."Landscape Character Assessment: Cairngorms - Landscape Evolution and Influences". NatureScot. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
The ice ages of the last 2.5 million years have left their mark both in terms of erosional and depositional features. The Cairngorm landscape displays a wide range of features associated with glaciation and periglaciation including corries and glacial troughs, moraines, kames, eskers and meltwater channels. One of the most significant glacial troughs is that of Loch A'an. Several of the mountains in the area - including Ben Mheadhoin, Bynack More and Ben Avon - have granite tors (known as "barns") in their upper reaches created by glacial processes.
Geography
The source of the River Avon is conventionally said to be Loch A'an situated between the mountains of Cairn Gorm and Ben Macdui."Loch Avon (Loch A'an)". Gazetteer for Scotland. Retrieved 1 August 2024. The headwaters of the strath are however the burns that tumble down from the summits of these two hills and from the Càrn Etchachan into Loch A'an. The river thus begins its journey in the heart of the Cairngorm Mountains which are never wholly free from snow; the forests cannot extend themselves to a great height on their sides nor a tree rear its head within the region of the cold; even pasturage itself fails, and their rocky summits are covered with a downy coat of yellow sapless moss.
Lochan Buidhe is a small freshwater loch on the high plateau above Loch A'an situated at over above sea level that is the highest named body of water in the British Isles."Top 5 Walking Routes in the Cairngorms: Ben Macdui". Wildernessscotland.com. Retrieved 17 July 2024. The is a burn that flows from the lochan down the steep slopes near Hell's Lum Crag and into Loch A'an. The Feith Buidhe disaster occurred near the burn in November 1971. Six individuals, including five fifteen-year-old Edinburgh school students died of exposure when their group became stranded in the open for two nights in a blizzard. The tragedy is regarded as Britain's worst mountaineering accident.
On the lower slopes of Càrn Etchachan near the rivulet of Garbh Uisge Mhor a titanic block of granite called the Shelter Stone rests on some smaller boulders. There is a cramped space under the stone that can provide some respite from the elements.Diak, Alison (2024) Place Names of the Cairngorm National Park. Cairngorms National Park Authority."The Loch A'an Basin Rock Climbing". Mountain Project. Retrieved 1 August 2024. In the 1830s, the stone was described as being capable of containing 12 or 15 men.
Loch A'an
The loch is situated at an altitude of above sea level, has a mean depth of and extends to ."Loch Avon". UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Retrieved 2 August 2024. It is oligotrophic in nature but despite the poor levels of nutrient it supports a variety of aquatic plant, invertebrate and fish species. Fish present include Arctic Charr and Brown Trout. The Cairngorms have diverse bryophyte habitats and important species include Andreaea frigida or icy rock moss, which is found on the margins of the loch and in the burns that feed it.
Significant examples of the semi-precious gemstone cairngorm have been found near the loch as well as blue topaz, and rare minerals appear in the granite bedrock such as chrysoberyl and columbite.
The Bathymetrical Survey of the Freshwater Lochs of Scotland, 1897-1909 by Sir John Murray and Lawrence Pullar provides comprehensive information for about 550 lochs. However a few significant ones, including Loch A'an, were omitted due to the difficulty in getting a boat to the site in order to carry out the survey."Loch bagging: exploring the freshwater lochs of Scotland". Lochbagging. Retrieved 3 August 2024. Nonetheless, in September 1861 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Loch A'an on an outing from Balmoral Castle.
Glen Avon
The river exits the loch and flows east into Glen Avon to the north of Ben Mheadhoin, passing the Fords of Avon where there is a refuge hut maintained by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland.Cairngorms National Park Authority. Planning Application 10/459/CP. 7 January 2011. Just below the fords the river is joined by the small watercourse of Allt an t-Seallaidh that runs down from the Lairig an Laoigh pass.
About from the fords is the next building in the glen - the Faindouran Lodge bothy. The river is joined by numerous small tributaries as it wends its way eastwards through the Forest of Glenavon to the north of Beinn a' Bhùird and Ben Avon. The most notable of these watercourses to join the river are the Burn of Loin and the Builg Burn originating at Loch Builg. The latter flows down Glen Builg to enter the Avon on its right bank just downstream of the Linn of Avon falls. The area is devoid of permanent habitation and the first stand of trees is encountered at Inchrory, a shooting lodge some west of the fords. The lodge is part of the Glenavon estate owned by a reclusive Malaysian businessman. Here the river turns sharply northwards."Inchrory and Strath Avon circuit". Walk Highlands. Retrieved 2 August 2024. This change of direction is due to the ice-age glaciers cutting through the pre-glacial watershed causing the headwaters of the Avon to be diverted - a process of river capture that resulted in the upper Avon flowing into the Spey rather than due east into Strathdon.
The narrow glen becomes wooded after about and here the river is joined by the Muckle Fergie Burn from the east. A kilometre later it reaches the farm of Birchfield and at this point the valley widens and becomes the strath proper.
The main strath
The farm of Delnabo sits on the west bank of the river at its confluence with the Water of Ailnack, which enters the strath from the confines of a precipitous gorge - the higher reaches of this watercourse are known as the Water of Caiplich. The farm is overlooked by the Queens Cairn viewpoint and is served by a metalled road which crosses the river and continues in a northeasterly direction to the village of Tomintoul, the largest settlement in the strath. Located in the parish of Kirmichael, the village's population was 322 at the time of the 2001 census."Moray Cenus 2001". Moray Council. (pdf) Retrieved 14 August 2024. At it is the highest village in the Highlands.
The A939 crosses the river at the old Bridge of Avon and a surfaced road, the B9136, follows the river's course downstream. The strath is much more thickly wooded from this point on. The Conglass Water originating at the Lecht, enters the Avon from the east and the Burn of Lochy enters from Glen Lochy to the west. Above Bridge of Brown the Lochy is fed in turn by the Burn of Brown. Tomintoul distillery, founded in 1964 and which produces malt whisky bottled as a single malt, is located in this part of the strath. The lowermost tributary of the Avon is the River Livet which enters from Glenlivet on the right bank at Drumin just as the Avon leaves the national park. The ruins of the fourteenth century Drumin Castle overlook the confluence of the two rivers.
The river and the B road run parallel to one another as they approach Bridge of Avon on the A95 trunk road and the settlement of Ballindalloch under the heights of Ben Rinnes. Ballindalloch Castle is a significant visitor attraction,"12 Top Things to Do in Moray Speyside". Visit Scotland. Retrieved 6 August 2024. and there are three distilleries in the area – Cragganmore, Tormore, and Ballindalloch, the last of which operates from the castle's estate farm. The River Aa'n reaches journey's end here as it joins the River Spey in the castle grounds.
Cartography
One of first maps covering the area in any detail was created by Gerardus Mercator in 1595, which became the main basis for maps of Scotland until the mid-17th century. The map shows the Ava flu. flowing parallel to Strath Spey in the west and joining the River Spey south of Rothes and below the Spey's confluence with the Fiddy flu. (i.e. the River Fiddich). The Ava flu. rises at a large body of water in the Cairngorms described on the map as Anan.