Innellan Pier

on Aug 13, 2018

The origins of Innellan date from the 1840s. Before that time the coastal area, five miles or so south of Dunoon, was sparsely populated. There were a few secluded summer homes for some of the wealthy businessmen from Paisley and Glasgow but the coast was in a state of nature. The name Innellan supposedly refers to the Perch, a rocky island off the coast but its present spelling derives from the time, around 1850, when feus were made available. Greenock Telegraph, December 28, 1849 Greenock Telegraph, August 30, 1850 “The New Watering Place.—Innellan promises to become a favourite locality for summer retirement. It is only a week or two since it was proposed to feu there, and we hear that already almost a dozen feuars are forward, and as there is a certainty of many tasteful villas making their appearance in that quarter in the course of the next two or three months. Innellan is...

The Latter Years of Columba

on Jun 7, 2017

An account of the early career of Messrs MacBrayne’s Ardrishaig Mail steamer, the stately Columba, can be found in an article of February 2015. In this article, more of an album than an account, the development of the steamer from the 1890s to her demise in 1935 will be traced. Some time in the 1890s, the promenade deck over the sponson houses fore an aft of the paddle wheels was extended and for the first time, Columba appeared with two lifeboats over the rear sponson houses, rather than a single boat aft. Columba with new lifeboats Columba in Rothesay Bay (Adamson) Columba leaving Innellan Columba Minor changes were also incorporated in subsequent years. The forward grandfather-clock ventilators for the aft saloon were turned around to face the stern following reboilering in 1900 and in the following year, a deck awning was erected aft of the funnels to protect the companionway to...