Clyde River Piers

on Apr 1, 2024

Lord of the Isles heading up the River Clyde with Dumbarton Rock in the distance With the exception of the Broomielaw and Bridge Wharf, photographs of pleasure steamers at the piers on the River Clyde are quite rare. In latter years, the usual stopping places were the piers at Partick, Govan, Renfrew, Bowling, and, for a brief period, Dumbarton. This article provides some background on the piers and the photographs I have of them. In the early years of steamboat traffic on the river, a journey might begin at a ferry point where the passengers would be rowed out to the passing steamboat by the ferryman. Common points on the river where there were ferries were at Govan; at the mouth of the Kelvin; at the “Water Neb,” the mouth of the Cart at Renfrew; at Dunglass point; and at the West Ferry crossing to Dumbarton. Boarding or disembarking a steamboat from or onto an open rowing ferry-boat...

Dumbarton’s Castle Pier

on Oct 12, 2020

The county town of Dumbarton on the river Clyde owes its origins to the rock that dominates the skyline and its bridge over the river Leven that provided access to the west. In its early history, Dumbarton was a sea-port of some importance but the industry of its larger neighbour, Glasgow, in deepening the Clyde diminished the trade. By virtue of an agreement made at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Dumbarton owned ships were exempt from the dues payable to Glasgow for the use of the waterway, and Glasgow worked over the years to remove this exemption, first limiting it to ships owed by burgesses of Dumbarton in 1825, then in 1858, after the railway had all but driven the Dumbarton steamboats from the river, it was removed altogether after compensation was paid by the Clyde Trustees, though ship-owning burgesses who served before that date were given continued exemption....

The Storm of November 26, 1912

on Nov 24, 2017

On the afternoon of November 26, 1912, a storm of hurricane proportions hit the West of Scotland, bringing more than half an inch of rain, and winds gusting in excess of 75 miles an hour. The storm was not the most violent on record but its peak coincided with the high tide causing more widespread damage. High tide at Glasgow reached over 25 feet, the highest value since 1882 so that the channel was 50 feet deep. Contractors cranes were blown over at the new Meadowside Granary. The steamships Architect and Clydeholm were damaged in the harbour and the Cervales was ashore. Further down the river, Bowling Harbour was submerged and the Renfrew and Yoker ferries were suspended. Helensburgh was isolated with roads and railway flooded, Ashton esplanade was damaged and the esplanade at Fairlie was washed away. Some of the worst damage was recorded on the Cowal shore. Dunoon Town Council...

Aerial Views of the Clyde

on Mar 4, 2017

Photographs of the Clyde Harbours and Resorts taken from the air and made into postcards have always been popular. They are an easy way of showing where you stay whether all-year-round, or on holiday. The earliest photographs of the Clyde that were released commercially appear to have been the work of an Edinburgh Company in the years shortly after the First World War, around 1920 or 1921. They are generally marked Aerial Photos Ltd., Edinburgh. They include a good selection of the Cowal Coast, including Dunoon, Rothesay and surrounding areas in Bute, and coastal towns in the Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire and Ayrshire. The photographs are oblique, taken at an angle, rather than the vertical stereo-pairs associated with mapping of later years. Quite a few show some of the steamers of the day. It is not clear what aircraft were used to obtain these photographs. Hunter’s Quay and the...

Helensburgh Quay

on Oct 21, 2015

The coming of the railway to Helensburgh was met with great anticipation, not least among those who saw the prospect of improvements promised to the quay. The magistrates in the town entered into an agreement with the Dumbartonshire Railway Co. who were to provide the funding to upgrade the pier but the collapse in railway funding in the early 1850s meant that the project was delayed. The Dumbartonshire Railway realized that the costs would exceed their initial estimates and offered a lump-sum to the payment to the town who responded by taking the matter to the courts. The “pier at Helensburgh—one of the most beautiful watering places on the Clyde…is not only rough and uneven in surface, so as to be altogether useless to visitors as a promenade, and exceedingly inconvenient in passing to and from the steamers, but it is positively dangerous to land at in certain states of the weather.”...

Victoria on the Clyde—1847

on Apr 19, 2015

In 1847, the Clyde and Western isles steamboat services were in flux. The Greenock Railway had opened six years earlier in 1841 and had challenged the dominance of steamboat companies in providing transportation in the Clyde area. After attempting to attract the steamboat companies to provide ongoing connections with the railway at Greenock, the Railway Company had begun to run its own connections. The principal services to Rothesay and Lochfyne were at this time in the hands of the Castle Steam Packet Company, and in 1845, Messrs. G. & J. Burns, who had hitherto been associated with the Glasgow and Belfast trade, acquired a controlling interest in the Company and its steamers. The following year, they added the steamers of the Greenock Railway and achieved a virtual monopoly of the Clyde connections with the Western Highlands and Islands. The West Highland services themselves were...