Loch Ness
Scotland's deep, dark loch and home of a legend
Loch Ness is famous less for what is in it than for what might be. This long, narrow, peat-dark loch in the Scottish Highlands holds more fresh water than every lake in England and Wales combined, and somewhere in its cold depths, according to a legend that has gripped the world since 1933, lives a monster. Nessie has never been found, but the search has made this loch one of the most storied bodies of water on Earth, drawing visitors to its shores at Drumnadrochit and to the ruined Urquhart Castle that overlooks its waters.
The loch lies along the Great Glen, a geological fault slicing across the Highlands, which gives it a steep, straight, fjord-like profile: only 56 square kilometres at the surface but plunging to a maximum depth of about 230 metres. Its water is stained brown by peat washed in from the surrounding hills, cutting visibility to a few metres and keeping the depths in perpetual darkness — conditions that have fed the monster legend as much as any sighting. It forms part of the Caledonian Canal, the waterway that links Scotland's east and west coasts across the glen.
St Columba is said to have driven off a beast in the River Ness in the sixth century, but the modern legend dates to a 1933 newspaper report and the blurry photographs that followed, several later exposed as hoaxes. Sonar sweeps and a comprehensive environmental-DNA survey have found no trace of any large unknown animal, though the eel population is striking. Legend or not, the loch is a genuine natural wonder of the Highlands, a deep, dark trench of water beneath castle ruins and heather-clad hills.