Inchfad is an island in the south east of Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond

Loch Lomond is a freshwater Scottish loch, lying on the Highland Boundary Fault. It is the largest lake in Great Britain by surface area. The lake contains many islands, including Inchmurrin, the largest fresh-water island in the British Isles, although the lake itself is smaller than many Irish...

 in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

Inchfad is 1.35 km (about a mile) long and forty hectares in area. Its highest point is 25 metres. The island forms part of the parish of Buchanan

Buchanan, Stirling

Buchanan is a historic parish in Stirlingshire in Scotland.It includes a large part of the eastern shore of Loch Lomond. The largest village in the parish is Balmaha....

 in west central Scotland, formerly part of Stirlingshire

Stirlingshire

Stirlingshire or the County of Stirling is a registration county of Scotland, based around Stirling, the former county town. It borders Perthshire to the north, Clackmannanshire and West Lothian to the east, Lanarkshire to the south, and Dunbartonshire to the south-west.Until 1975 it was a county...

 and now under Stirling Council.

Inchfad is partially wooded and has two residents. There are two houses on Inchfad, a modernized bungalow which served as the original farmhouse and a wooden house used as a holiday home.

The very small island of Ellanderroch

Ellanderroch

Ellanderroch is an island in Loch Lomond in Scotland.It is a very small island, 100 metres in breadth at its widest point. It lies a short distance to the south-west of the larger island of Inchfad.The island has been used as a shelter for fishermen...

 is just off its south-western tip.

There is a canal on the island which is 1/4 mile long, connected with the distillery.

History

After the closure of illicit whisky

Whisky

Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn...

 still

Still

A still is a permanent apparatus used to distill miscible or immiscible liquid mixtures by heating to selectively boil and then cooling to condense the vapor...

s around the loch, Inchfad became the home of a registered distillery. The ruins can be seen to this day. A canal was built to minimize the distance that the raw materials for the whisky had to be man handled.

Inchfad was taken over by the MacFarlanes in the early 18th century, who ran a government distillery until the mid 19th century, and their descendants run the boatyard at Balmaha

Balmaha

Balmaha is a hamlet on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond in the council area of Stirling, Scotland.The name Balmaha comes from the Gaelic for St Maha's Place which suggests the village may have ancient origins, perhaps as a hermit's residence...

 nearby, as well as the island's mail service. Other owners have included the Dukes of Montrose, and Charles Collins, founder of the publishing dynasty.

The island was bought in 1944 by an English couple called Davison, who set about restoring the farm to working condition. Everything was brought up by train from the Wirral, including livestock. After they succeeded, they sold the island, and set off in a converted fishing vessel, which was wrecked off Portland Bill drowning Frank Davison. His widow Ann Davison

Ann Davison

Ann Davison was, at the age of 39, the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean. She departed Plymouth, England in her 23 foot boat Felicity Ann on May 18, 1952. She landed in Brittany, Portugal, Morocco and the Canary Islands, before setting sail across the Atlantic on 20 November...

later wrote an autobiography called Home was an Island about their life on Inchmurrin and Inchfad.

In 1953 Ann Davison then went on to sail the Atlantic single handed and was the first woman to accomplish this. She spent her later life in the US.

External links

• article which mentions it