Loch Arthur (also known as Loch Lotus) is a lake in the council area of Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland near the village of Beeswing.
Loch Arthur lies to the east of the village of Beeswing and has been claimed as the setting for the Arthurian story of the Lady of the Lake.
The loch contains just one prehistoric lake dwelling (crannog), located on the northern shore. Small-scale underwater excavations were carried out in 2004 demonstrating the main timber mound of the crannog dates to the second half of the first millennium BC and was then re-occupied in the later medieval period. A large logboat with an animals-head prow and a possible paddle have been found on the opposite shore.
Loch Arthur Camphill Community is a farm near the loch where people with disabilities, volunteers and staff produce organic cheese, butter and other foods.
References
Robert Munro: Ancient Scottish lake-dwellings or crannogs : with a supplementary chapter on remains of lake-dwellings in England 1882 Nicholas Dixon: The history of crannog survey and excavation in Scotland 2007 Ian Morrison: Landscape with lake dwellings: the crannogs of Scotland Edinburgh University Press 1986 ISBN 085224522X Robert J. C. Mowat: The logboats of Scotland, with notes on related artefact types, Oxbow Monograph series, No. 68. Oxford. 1996, S. 78–9
External links Loch Arthur Camphill Community