Remains of the old Fochabers Canal

In 1905 His Grace the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, decided he would use the River Spey, the fastest flowing river in Scotland, to drive a water turbine to produce electricity to light Gordon Castle, his home by the village of Fochabers. Being a benevolent estate owner, he decided the village of Fochabers residents who wished to, could also have electricity in their homes, for the princely sum of five shillings per annum.
A canal was constructed, with its intake at what was then a bend in the river, upstream, and the canal fed into a Turbine house by the Fochabers Burn which housed the generator.
All that is left these days are the concrete walls of the canal and at the intake the large iron grate to keep floating debris from entering the canal. The river has long since changed its course, but my father remembers clearly as a boy, the village children swimming in the canal in summer, and skating on it in winter.
In the 1960s it was a popular walk to go down the track to the intake, and it was sufficiently well-maintained that you could also drive down.
Yesterday it was a struggle to see where the road had been, and the canal has gradually filled in with debris, and has trees growing out of it in places. The iron grate is still in place at the intake but the river has changed course dramatically since 1905, and even in spate flows by at right angles and well below the intake level.