Crannog on Loch Tay

Morning photograph of the Crannog on Loch Tay, near Kenmore. This is an authentic recreation of an early Iron Age lake-dwelling based directly on the results of underwater excavations in Loch Tay.

The earliest loch-dwelling in Scotland is some 5,000 years old but people built, modified, and re-used crannogs in Scotland up until the 17th century AD. Throughout their long history crannogs served as farmers' homesteads, status symbols, refuges in times of trouble, hunting and fishing stations, and even holiday residences. In Perthshire, the prehistoric crannogs were originally timber-built roundhouses supported on piles or stilts driven into the lochbed.