The Earl of Hamilton gave the land around Catacol as a dowry to his
daughter Ann when she married the Irish Lord Rossmore. It was Lord
Rossmore who built Catacol Farm as a hunting lodge, but the lodge
was built next to the track that connected the old farming village
of Catacol (about 1km further east) to the coast road. Lord
Rossmore had the terrace of 12 white cottages built next to the sea
as fishermen’s cottages as he intended to clear his estate to
use as dear forest. However the 85 residents of Catacol refused to
move, so in 1842 Lord Rossmore invited them to a meeting at the
lodge and while he had the entrance barred with the residents
trapped inside he had their old homes burnt to the ground.
As a consequence of this the folk of Catacol refused to move
into the new cottages which stood empty for at least two years.
Lord Rossmore died in 1845 and with no heir the land reverted to
the Earl of Hamilton who leased Catacol Lodge as a Catacol
Farmhouse. The new village of Catacol became a fishing station
based on the herring fisheries, though not on the grand scale of
Lochranza. The fishermen kept their boats in a natural harbour
called The Canal which linked the small Abhainn Beag to the
main Catacol River (Abhainn Mor) behind a large shingle spit. By
the mouth of the Abhainn Beag was a barking house where oak bark
was boiled in kettles and the nets were then steeped in the brew as
a preservative. Unfortunately the Canal was destroyed by
winter storms which periodically flood the main road since the
shingle spit removed to use as ballast for the Loch Sloy hydro dam
in the 1940s.
Apart from the Farm and Catacol Bay Hotel (which was the Free
Church manse) most of the houses in Catacol are now holiday homes.
Even the Free Church Chapel, which Lord Rossmore had built as an
inducement are now gone. However this is one of the few places on
the North End where you can still see beef cattle grazing in the
glen.
