Prior to that, a small power station had been built at the Falls of Conon in the 1920s, and a private scheme for the Brahan Estate was commissioned in 2015 at Dunglass Island.

[1] The waters that form the River Conon rise on Mòine Mhòr ("Great Moss"), an upland peat bog to the west of Achnasheen and to the south east of Kinlochewe.

[2] This is a single span bridge built of rubble as part of a ten-year project to construct a road from Achnasheen to Strome Ferry between 1808 and 1819.

The river is joined by the Abhainn a' Chomair, which rises in the Glencarron and Glenuig Forest on the northern slopes of Cnoc na Mòine and Carn Gorm, where it is called the Allt Gharagain.

This flows to the north, and turns to the north-east near the hamlet of Ledgowan, where it is joined by the A890 road and the Kyle of Lochalsh railway line.

[2] This is housed in a tall single-storey building designed by James Shearer in 1952, built into a cliff at one end and constructed of random rubble.

It rises as a series of springs and streams in Glencarron and Glenuig Forest, close to the source of the River Bran, but on the southern slopes of the hills.

A minor road runs along the northern shore of the loch,[2] which contains an artificial island at its eastern end, on which a prehistoric crannog settlement was built.

The river then enters the artificial Loch Meig, created by the dam at its eastern end, and passes through a natural arch before it joins the Conon.

Moy island is formed where the channel splits,[2] and then the north bank is the southern edge of the Braham estate, 1,295 acres (524 ha) of designed landscape.

The deck is carried by 67 piers, designed to minimise changes to the tidal flows, in order to protect the feeding ground which are an important habitat for migrating birds.

[2] Dingwall and Strathpeffer, both slightly to the north of the Conon near its mouth, had been supplied with hydro-electric power since 1903, when an 80 kW station was financed by Colonel E W Blunt-MacKenzie, the husband of the Countess of Cromarty.

They borrowed £20,000 under the Trade Facilities Act, which financed the construction of a dam at the eastern end of Loch Luichart, and a power station near the Conon Falls.

[20][21] The Conon Valley was one of the early hydroelectric schemes implemented by the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, although it was constructed in three phases between 1946 and 1961.

[22] After the board was created in 1943, Edward MacColl the chief executive produced a list of 102 projects which he thought could be built, from small ones to huge ones involving several neighbouring glens.

[24] When the board promoted their second scheme, that at Tummel-Garry, members in the House of Commons attempted to get the findings of the tribunal which had considered objections to it overturned, but this was defeated.

At the lower end of the tunnel, water is conveyed to Grudie Bridge power station by a steel pipeline which is above ground.

[29] The power station building is clad in red Tarradale sandstone and was designed by the architect James Shearer of Dunfermline.

[30] Shearer had previously worked on other schemes, including the first to be commissioned at Nostie Bridge and had approached MacColl with the suggestion that the power station should be built of stone, to blend in with the surrounding architecture.

MacColl readily agreed,[31] but when it came to designing the structure at Grudie Bridge, he felt that construction in stone would be too slow and cost too much, and so prepared sketches for a concrete, steel and glass building.

As a result, the use of local stone to face large concrete buildings became a policy within the Board, and Grudie Bridge power station was redesigned as a consequence.

A 4.5-mile (7.2 km) tunnel from just above the Glascarnoch dam feeds water to Mossford power station, on the bank of Loch Luichart.

The final part of this stage was to construct a dam across the River Conon at Torr Achilty, to create Loch Achonachie.

Over 3 miles (4.8 km) of tunnel and a steel pipeline deliver the water to Orrin power station on the southern shore of Loch Achonachie.

The catching of salmon in the river and in the Cromarty Firth, which is protected from the open sea, has been a lucrative occupation for several centuries, and by the early 19th century, there were a large number of fixed nets in the firth, as well as nets and fixed salmon traps called cruives in the river.

In 1920 the Moray Firth Salmon Fishing Company was set up by Sir John Stirling, Lord Roberts and others.

The North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board bought all of the salmon fishing rights, apart from those owned by Sir John Stirling of the Fairburn estate, who refused to sell.

They also created a large capacity hatchery, and guaranteed compensation flows on the Conon all year round, which prevented low water levels in the summer months from curtailing fishing.

A fish trap on the upper Black Water is used to catch adult salmon, which are used to provide eggs for the hatchery.

Although fish stocks appear to be recovering well, they are regularly predated by seals, as there is a population of around 400 in the Firth, which hunt on the river as far upstream as Torr Achilty dam.