Until the latter years of the eighteenth century, the Bay of Bowling was best known for its sandy beach in the bend of the Clyde just upriver from the rocky Dunglass Point where the ancient keep of the Colquhoun Family stood in ruins. There was an inn and a hotel and it was a pleasant, sheltered spot for bathing. At Littlemill, on the Auchentorlie Burn, there was a disused mill that by the early 1770s had been at one time used as a bleaching works and then taken over as a distillery. It was the designation of Bowling as the western terminus of the Forth and Clyde canal that changed the Bay’s fortunes. Originally, the canal was meant to enter the Clyde at Dalmuir, but this was changed in 1785 when Robert Whitworth was appointed chief engineer of the Canal Company. Over the next few years the sea-lock and canal basin were excavated to meet the western extension of the canal from...