Knapdale (Scottish Gaelic: Cnapadal) forms a rural district of Argyll and Bute in the Scottish Highlands, adjoining Kintyre to the south, and divided from the rest of Argyll to the north by the Crinan Canal. It includes two parishes, North Knapdale and South Knapdale.
Knapdale Forest, planted in the 1930s, covers much of the region. During the 1930s, the Ministry of Labour supplied the men from among the unemployed, many coming from the crisis-hit mining and heavy industry communities of the Central Belt. They were housed in one of a number of Instructional Centres created by the Ministry, most of them on Forestry Commission property; by 1938, the Ministry had 38 Instructional Centres across Britain. The camp was used to hold enemy prisoners during the Second World War. The hutted camp in Knapdale was located at Cairnbaan, just south of the Crinan Canal, and a surviving building remains in use as a Forestry Commission workshop.
Local attractions include the Chapel of Keills, A grave-slab in the chapel has a carving of a clarsach similar to the Queen Mary Harp currently at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, one of only the three surviving medieval gaelic harps. West Highland grave slabs from the Argyll area, suggesting that Knapdale is where this harp originated. The village also has a thirteenth century Kilmory Chapel and the eleventh century Castle Sween.
In 2005, the Scottish Government turned down a licence application for unfenced reintroduction of the European Beaver in Knapdale. However, in late 2007 a successful application was made for a release project,[1] and the first beavers were released on the 29 May 2009.[2][3] This initial release into the wild of 11 animals received a setback during the first year with the disappearance of two animals and the unproven allegation of the illegal shooting of a third. However, the remaining population was increased in 2010 by further releases.[4] Knapdale has a designation as a National Scenic Area.
Places in Knapdale include:
The United Kingdom Census 2001 reported a population of 2325, down from 2641 in the United Kingdom Census 1991, a change from 312 to 527 in North Knapdale, and from 2641 to 2325 in South Knapdale. Census figures for the 19th and 20th centuries show a continuing and steady decline of population in North Knapdale, from a peak of around 2700 in 1825 to under 500 in 1950. Possible boundary changes make historic comparisons for South Knapdale less certain, but this part of the region appears not to have suffered the same depopulation as the north, and even modest growth, a rise from around 1750 in 1801 to around 2700 in 1901.
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