Greenock · GB

Loch Thom

Set in the hills above Greenock on the Firth of Clyde, Loch Thom looks for all the world like a natural Highland loch dropped onto the lowlands. It isn't. This broad curve of water, sitting at about 195 metres and stretching roughly 2.4 kilometres, was created in the 1820s as a reservoir and named after Robert Thom, the civil engineer who designed the scheme that brought water down to the booming industrial town below. Today it is a place to walk, fish, wander nature trails and drink in some of the finest views in western Scotland. Loch Thom sits inside Clyde Muirshiel Regional Park, and its real magic lies in the story stitched into the landscape: the grass dam, the smaller compensation reservoir, and the almost perfectly level aqueduct known as the Greenock Cut, which winds for several kilometres around the hillside toward the town. Start from the Greenock Cut Visitor Centre at Cornalees Bridge and you can spend a half-day tracing the water that once powered paper mills, sugar refineries and shipyards, with the Clyde, the islands and the Highlands opening up at every turn.