Loch Fannich is a remote loch in Ross-shire

Ross-shire

Ross-shire is an area in the Highland Council Area in Scotland. The name is now used as a geographic or cultural term, equivalent to Ross. Until 1889 the term denoted a county of Scotland, also known as the County of Ross...

, in the Scottish

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...

 highlands

Highland (council area)

Highland is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in both Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole. It shares borders with the council areas of Moray, Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross, and Argyll and Bute. Their councils, and those of Angus and...

. The loch is located 12 miles west of Strathpeffer

Strathpeffer

Strathpeffer is a village and former spa town in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland, with a population of 1,469.-Geography:It lies in a glen 5 miles west of Dingwall, with varying elevation from 200 to 400 feet above sea level...

.

Loch Fannich was dammed and its water level raised as part of the Conon Hydro-Electric Power Scheme, built by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board between 1946 and 1961. An underground water tunnel leading from Loch Fannich to the Grudie Bridge Power Station required blasting out a final mass of rock beneath the loch, a procedure which was referred to popularly as "Operation Bathplug".

In the 1950s, the rising waters of the dammed loch subsumed the Cabuie Lodge (near the village of Achanalt

Achanalt

Achanalt is a railway halt in Strath Bran, Ross and Cromarty, in the Scottish council area of Highland. It is served by a railway station on the Kyle of Lochalsh Line from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh.-History:...

), once home to Sir Arthur Bignold

Arthur Bignold

Sir Arthur Bignold was a Unionist Party politician in Scotland who served as the Member of Parliament for Wick Burghs from 1900 to 1906....

, MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Wick Burghs

Wick Burghs (UK Parliament constituency)

Wick Burghs, sometimes known as Northern Burghs, was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1918...

in the early 20th century.