MacBrayne’s Comet

on Feb 21, 2019

The twin-screw motor vessel Win was built on the Thames by Messrs A. W. Robertson & Co. in 1905. She was just 65 feet long and 14 feet in the beam, 43 tons, and was powered by two 4-cylinder paraffin motors. In 1907, Messrs MacBrayne acquired the little craft and renamed her Comet. For the next ten years she was employed on Loch Leven and the Caledonian Canal. In 1917, Comet was transferred to the Clyde and became the Lochgoil Mail Steamer sailing from Greenock and Gourock to Lochgoilhead. The route by road to Lochgoilhead was difficult and the direct sailing was viewed as an essential lifeline for the villagers, especially over the winter months. Comet at Gourock (Robertson) Glasgow Corporation received the Ardgoil Estate as a gift from Mr A. Cameron Corbett in 1906. During the summers, Lochgoilhead was a popular destination for steamers that allowed the good folk of Glasgow...

The Upper Navigation

on Jan 24, 2019

Mr. Thomas Bollen Seath was well acquainted with Clyde shipping by the time he set up a shipbuilding concern at Meadowside in Partick in the middle of the 1850s. He had been associated with captain M‘Kellar’s Millport and Arran steamers for a number of years. His second ship was the Nelson, a small steamer that inherited the engines of the ill-fated Eclipse that was wrecked on the Gantocks. The third and last steamer he built at Partick was named the Artizan and it is about this vessel that this article first focuses. In 1856, Seath sold his yard at Meadowside and moved to a new location in Rutherglen, well above the weir on the Clyde that demarcated the extent of the harbour of Glasgow. There he planned to build ships of a size limited by the depth of the river and the tricky negotiation of the weir, something Messrs Seath & Co. accomplished with considerable success for almost...

All the way to Stornoway

on Jan 22, 2019

The prospects of serving the most remote parts of the western isles by steamboat featured early the annals. In the Herald of December 22, 1820, the following appeared:— “Steam-Packets to the Hebrides and North-west of Scotland.—The great facilities now afforded for visiting many parts of this country, by means of the cheap and safe conveyance of these vessels, continue to be everywhere on the increase. At present, it must afford much satisfaction to all interested in the northern parts of our Island, to learn, that a communication is now to be opened, by this admirable invention, to many parts of the Highlands which were lately, and are yet, comparatively inaccessible by roads. It is now intended that a Steam-boat shall begin to ply from the Clyde—to the Lewes, through the Crinan Canal and Sound of Mull—to call at Tobermory—from thence to the Sound of Skye—call at Isle Ornsay,...

Marchioness of Bute on Clyde and Tay

on Dec 2, 2018

On Tuesday May 6, 1890, Miss Maud Williamson, daughter of Mr James Williamson, marine superintendant of the Caledonian Steam Packet Company (Limited) gracefully named the new steamer Marchioness of Bute as she slid down the ways at the Port Glasgow yard of Messrs John Reid & Co. She was to be fitted with compound tandem engines by Messrs Rankin & Blackmore, Greenock, and was the second vessel launched that year for the Caledonian Company. Marchioness of Breadalbane and Marchioness of Bute were improved duplicates of the Caledonia, launched from the same yard the previous year, and they arrived just in time to allow the Company to take over connections from Wemyss Bay to Rothesay and Millport when the Wemyss Bay Company withdrew its service. It was just a month later that the steamer went through her trials on the sheltered waters of the Gareloch. “River Steamer Marchioness of...

Toward Pier

on Sep 28, 2018

“About 6 miles from Dunoon the district of Toward commences, and extends along the coast for a distance of about 4 miles. There is no village of the name; but about the centre of the district there is a chapel in connection with the Established Church (Rev. James Geekie). Close beside the church is Toward pier and lighthouse, and Castle Toward. Old Castle Toward was at one time the seat of the ancient family of Lamont of Ardlamont. It was purchased many years ago, along with Auchenvulline and other adjoining estates, by the late Kirkman Finlay, Esq., of Glasgow, who erected the present stately mansion, and is now the seat of his son, A. S. Finlay, Esq., late M.P. for Argyllshire. The view from Castle Toward is most magnificent. Situated on a rising ground, it commands a prospect of great extent, including parts of Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, the two Cumbraes, Bute, and the distant hills...

Hunter’s Quay

on Sep 8, 2018

When a Greenock merchant, James Hunter, acquired the Hafton estate from its original Campbell owners in 1816 he extended the existing Hafton House and began to develop feuing in the area. One of the early arrivals was James Ewing, then Lord Provost of Glasgow, who built the Castle House in Dunoon 1822. It was such gentlemen and their families that attracted the early steamboat traffic to the area. As in other coastal communities, feuing was encouraged by the provision of a pier and James Hunter provided one of the first on the Cowal shore in 1828. Hunter’s Quay was a stone built quay with a wooden extension where the steamboats could dock. Isle of Bute approaching Hunter’s Quay in 1841 The building of villas along the south shore of the Holy Loch and the Cowal shore of the Firth followed quickly afterwards. The location of the pier at Hunter’s Quay was protected from the worst of...