Looking back with Ian Scott on the heritage of Carron Dams

Although there is still a good deal of water in the dams they are for the most part overgrown as part of a deliberate and laudable plan to create a tranquil wildlife sanctuary where once the mighty blast furnaces lit up the skies and the forge hammers deafened all within earshot.

When the founding partners Roebuck, Cadell and Garbett decided that the Carron site was “infinitely preferable to all others” for their new works in 1759, one of the reasons was that water could be drawn from the Carron a mile or so away below Larbert Cross and fed through a lade to the works where a large reservoir would be created. From here the power of falling water would turn a great wheel and drive the bellows for the blast and power the forge.

The following year after many a long legal argument with the landowners in Larbert the lade was dug out by soldiers hired from Bo’ness. It was 14 feet wide by about 5 feet deep and today it is possible, to walk from the viaduct along its length past Carronvale to what remains of the great reservoirs.

Back in the 1760s the lade builders also helped lay the foundations of three reservoirs, the earliest of which, the Furnace Pool was completed in 1761. A few years later the larger Forge Dam known later as the ‘small dam’ was in use and the system was completed in 1775 with the filling of the great 30 acre Wester Dam which is the one we see from the road. It is shaped like an ear and is relatively shallow at about 3 feet while the Forge Dam was three times deeper.

The dams were separated by raised paths which allowed some of the leading men of Carron to stroll along from their fine houses like Carrongrange, Mount Carron or Carron Park to see what the workers were up to in their absence! The public were discouraged from using the reservoirs for fishing or swimming but that didn’t stop local people chancing their arms or indeed prevent the Manager for Carron, Eric Leaver, in the 1950s, sailing his little boat among the famous swans.

The arrival of steam power in the late 18th century might have removed the need for water wheels and reservoirs but Carron continued to depend on water power and later utilised the supply for a number of other purposes within the works. The original Furnace Pool was removed in stages but the other two survived right through until the company closed in 1980 mainly because the cost of removing them was prohibitive. Thereafter nature was allowed to reclaim the space and today we must rely on a number of excellent photographs and our fading memories to recall the great days when water powered Falkirk’s industrial revolution.

In recent years a group of local enthusiasts supported by the Council, including young people from Larbert High School, undertook a very successful project to attract more people to visit the site. Among the additions made were several wrought iron entrances from the road which greatly enhance the approach. We are all in their debt for helping preserve this very important and attractive part of our industrial heritage.