"Lochwinnoch" used to be on an island in the Clyde

No kidding! And we are still in an Ice Age, really, no kidding. And Nessie is real, well now I might be kidding, who knows.

"Lochwinnoch" (had it existed at the time I am talking about) was on an island and it was all due to the ice age. It wasn’t all that long ago when the land Lochwinnoch sits upon was an island in the Clyde, ~11,000 years ago, a blink in geological terms. Not that long ago if you think of it in terms of ancient civilisation.

Roman 753BC – 476AD

Mayan 2600BC-900AD

Ancient Greece 2700BC-479BC

Ancient Egyptian 3150BC-30BC

Danubian Culture 5500BC- 3500BC

Mesopotamian 6500BC-539BC

Jiahu Culture 7000BC-5700BC

The last ice age started some 115,000 years ago, peaked ~21000 years ago and after 10,000 years of warming brought us to the climate we know today. Global temperatures rose around 6 degrees and CO2 levels rose 50%, a significant contributor to the rising temperature. But that ice age was just part of a much larger sequence of glacial and interglacial periods known as the Quaternary glaciation. It started some 2,600,000 years ago and is ongoing, despite all the talk of global warming we are still in an ice age. Our influence is merely speeding up the warming of the warm period between glaciers advancing and glaciers retreating. In fact, the amount of CO2 we have put into the atmosphere in the last 100 years is the same as it took the planet 10,000 years of warming to achieve. The interglacial period we are currently in is called the Holocene. The geological record shows that during this Quaternary period glacial advance and retreat occur on a 100,000-year cycle. Miankovitch cycles have been shown to predict this cyclic nature.

So how was "Lochwinnoch" on an island in the Clyde when the last glacial period ended 11-10,000 years ago? Well, obviously enough the ice melted and sea levels rose, in this case by about 40m or so flooding the land between Irvine and Renfrew. The map below shows an outline of the 40m contour indicating the land between the two blue lines that would have been inundated. You could literally sail from Renfrew to Irvine past Johnstone, Howwood, Lochwinnoch, Kilbirnie and Dalry. The Castle Semple Loch, the Barr Loch, Aird Meadow and Kilbirnie Loch are the remnants of that great flood. The second map is a closeup of Lochwinnoch and where the 40m contour runs through the village. Everything on the river side of Calder Street is underwater as is everything on the Loch side of Glenpark Road and the Gates Road.

But where has all the water gone if it was 40m deep? Sea levels have not fallen, what has happened, and is still happening, is that the land has risen. The weight of ice, up to 1400m thick, during the ice age depressed the earths crust. When that ice was gone the crust began to rise back up to its former level. It is still rising today so if James Adam only waited for a bit the Barr Loch will drain itself quite naturally. The reason the crust is still rising when the ice has been gone for 11-10,000 years is the crust is stiff. That stiffness means it cannot react as speedily as the ice melted. Evidence of the rising land form can be seen from the raised beaches between Largs and Inverkip and between West Kilbride and Ardrossan.

Tutankhamun lived 3350years ago and if the rate of rise of the land is linear and he had visited Lochwinnoch for a holiday like Glasgow folk did when my Dad was a boy, the “Loch” would be 13m deep not the 1.5m deep it is today. The next article I will upload is about Tutankhamun and his links with Lochwinnoch, no kidding, not that he actually holidayed here.