Bowling
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![]() Bowling Harbour in 2008 | |
Location within West Dunbartonshire | |
Population | 560 (2022) [1] |
OS grid reference | NS445737 |
Civil parish | |
Council area | |
Lieutenancy area | |
Country | Scotland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | GLASGOW |
Postcode district | G60 |
Dialling code | 01389 |
Police | Scotland |
Fire | Scottish |
Ambulance | Scottish |
UK Parliament | |
Scottish Parliament | |
Bowling (Scots : Bowlin, [2] [3] Scottish Gaelic : Bolan) [4] is a village in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, with a population of 740 (2015).
It lies on the north bank of the Firth of Clyde, between the towns of Clydebank and Dumbarton. It is 1+1⁄2 miles (2.5 kilometres) west of Old Kilpatrick which is at one end of the Antonine Wall and therefore represents the extreme limit of the Roman Empire on the west coast of the island of Great Britain.
Bowling is the location of the western terminus of the Forth and Clyde Canal, opened in 1790, and it is the western gateway to the Lowland canals.
In 2008, British Waterways Scotland, in conjunction with Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire, completed a £1.4 million regeneration programme at Bowling Basin to provide additional moorings and improved facilities. At the time there were plans for future use of an area of 140 acres (60 hectares) of land adjacent to Bowling, in conjunction with Clydeport. [5]
In June 2008, Lord Provost Denis Agnew, joined local schoolchildren and community groups to celebrate the completion of a £163,000 project to improve seven kilometres of towpath on the Forth & Clyde Canal from Bowling Harbour to Whitecrook in Clydebank. [6]
In 2007, Bowling welcomed the "Vital Spark", one of only five surviving Clyde puffers, and the first of its kind to sail into Bowling Harbour for more than 40 years. [7] The Forth & Clyde Canal is regarded as the birthplace of the puffers, which had to be small enough to negotiate the Crinan Canal. The archetypal puffer, the Vital Spark, appeared in the "Para Handy" books by Neil Munro and two television series of the same name.
Bowling has been long associated with shipbuilding and ship repairing. The opening of the Forth and Clyde canal at Bowling in 1790 increased the number of vessels passing through the small village on their way to Glasgow.
The first shipbuilding name in Bowling is that of Thomas MacGill, originally from Glasgow. He rented the Graving dock in 1800, for which he paid £25 in the first year. McGill and two of his sons built vessels at Bowling until 1843 when the yard was forced to close due to an extension of the Forth and Clyde Canal basin.
In 1834 George Mills and Charles Wood entered into partnership, opening a shipyard at Littlemill in Bowling, at the other end of the bay from Thomas MacGill. This partnership did not last long, as Charles Wood left to set up a shipyard in Dumbarton on his own. In 1840/1 George Mills retired from shipbuilding and the shipyard closed.
In 1851 a new partnership was formed at Bowling between Thomas MacGill's two sons, David and Thomas, and James Scott, whose father owned land at Littlemill. The company was known as Scott & MacGill. [8] The shipyard was located on ground known as Frisky Hall Orchard and this small yard built wooden sailing vessels until, in 1874, it built its first iron vessel.
In 1876 Thomas MacGill retired from the firm, leaving James Scott on his own and the name of the company was changed to Scott and Company. A partnership was formed in 1892 between James Scott and his two sons, Charles Wood Scott and James Scott Junior. The firm's name was changed again, to Scott and Sons. The firm continued to prosper well into the twentieth century, building in excess of 450 vessels, many of these being passenger vessels and coasters for Gardner & Stewart. In 1958, following the retirement of James W. Scott, the firm became a limited company, trading under the name Scott Sons (Bowling) Limited.
In June 1965, the company was taken over by Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Greenock. In 1979 the decision was taken to close the shipbuilding yard. [9] The last vessel to leave the yard was the Laggan [10] built for Forth Tugs Limited of Grangemouth.
One well-known ship built by Scott was the MV Saint Bedan, launched in January 1937. [11] After several changes of ownership and name, it became MV Panagiotis and allegedly spent its later life as a smuggling ship in the Ionian Sea. It ran aground at Navagio Beach on the Ionian Island of Zakynthos (Zante) in 1980, becoming one of the most picturesque and well-visited shipwrecks in the world. [12] [13]
The former ExxonMobil fuel oil terminal site, is now a proposed mixed use redevelopment location. [14] [15]
Glenarbuck House is a Category B listed building in Bowling. It was built in 1804 for the merchant Gilbert Hamilton (1744–1808) who was the first president of the Glasgow Humane Society, a founding member of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Glasgow's Lord Provost in 1792. Later owners included the Duke of Sutherland and the Scott family of the shipbuilders Scott and Sons.
Bowling railway station opened in 1850 when the North Clyde line ran via Dumbarton to Balloch. In 1858 the line was extended to progress to Glasgow to the east, and Helensburgh to the west. Between 1896 and 1951, the village was also served by a second station, on Caledonian Railway's Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire Railway line. [16] Its former trackbed now forms a footpath and cycleway through the village.
Today ScotRail services call at Bowling, two trains per hour each direction.
Bowling is in the same parish as Old Kilpatrick Church and the former church in Bowling has been converted into housing.
The village has an annual Gala Day in June, at which a girl is crowned Queen for a day. The ceremony starts at Bowling Memorial Park and continues to Bowling Hall.
Bowling also has an annual cheese running competition where locals chase rolls of cheese down the Kilpatrick hills. The winner is awarded a giant roll of cheese and has the village hall named after them until next year's cheese race. Steven Donnachie is currently the record holder, having won the cheese race 6 times. (This event does not exist and videos in relation to this are taken from elsewhere.)
The River Clyde is a river that flows into the Firth of Clyde, in the west of Scotland. It is the ninth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland after the River Tay and the River Spey. It runs through the city of Glasgow. The River Clyde estuary has an upper tidal limit located at the tidal weir next to Glasgow Green.
The Firth of Clyde is the estuary of the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The Firth has some of the deepest coastal waters of the British Isles. The Firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre Peninsula. The Firth lies between West Dunbartonshire in the north, Argyll and Bute in the west and Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire in the east. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran. The Kyles of Bute separates the Isle of Bute from the Cowal Peninsula. The Sound of Bute separates the islands of Bute and Arran.
The Forth and Clyde Canal is a canal opened in 1790, crossing central Scotland; it provided a route for the seagoing vessels of the day between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. This allowed navigation from Edinburgh on the east coast to the port of Glasgow on the west coast. The canal is 35 miles (56 km) long and it runs from the River Carron at Grangemouth to the River Clyde at Bowling, and had an important basin at Port Dundas in Glasgow.
Govan is a district, parish, and former burgh now part of southwest Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated 2+1⁄2 miles west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick. Historically it was part of the County of Lanark.
Dunbartonshire or the County of Dumbarton is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the west central Lowlands of Scotland lying to the north of the River Clyde. Dunbartonshire borders Perthshire to the north, Stirlingshire to the east, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire to the south, and Argyllshire to the west.
Dumbarton is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary. In 2006, it had an estimated population of 19,990.
Clydebank is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, it borders the village of Old Kilpatrick to the west, and the Yoker and Drumchapel areas of the adjacent City of Glasgow immediately to the east. Depending on the definition of the town's boundaries, the suburban areas of Duntocher, Faifley and Hardgate either surround Clydebank to the north, or are its northern outskirts, with the Kilpatrick Hills beyond.
The Clyde puffer is a type of small coal-fired and single-masted cargo ship, built mainly on the Forth and Clyde canal, which provided a vital supply link around the west coast and Hebrides of Scotland.
MV The Second Snark is a small passenger ferry, built in 1938 by William Denny of Dumbarton, later operated by Clyde Marine Services on the Firth of Clyde, Scotland.
Old Kilpatrick, is a village in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. The name Old Kilpatrick is said to be derived from St. Patrick ostensibly being born here. It has an estimated population of 4,820. It belonged to the parish of Old Kilpatrick which itself was only a few thousand people strong.
The Scottish Maritime Museum is an industrial museum with a Collection Recognised as Nationally Significant to Scotland. It is located at two sites in the West of Scotland in Irvine and Dumbarton, with a focus on Scotland's shipbuilding heritage.
Dalmuir is an area nine miles northwest of Glasgow, Scotland, on the western side of Clydebank, and part of West Dunbartonshire Council Area. The name is a lowland Scots derivation of the Gaelic meaning Big Field. The area was originally two separate villages with Dalmuir Shore joining with Clydebank in 1886 and Dalmuir Village in 1906, during a period of rapid industrialisation and expansion. Dalmuir is bounded by the village of Old Kilpatrick to the west, the Mountblow and Parkhall housing schemes to the north, and the Clydebank town centre area to the east. To the south is the River Clyde.
Bowling railway station serves the village of Bowling in the West Dunbartonshire region of Scotland. This station is on the North Clyde Line, between Kilpatrick and Dumbarton East, 12 miles 70 chains (20.7 km) from Glasgow Queen Street measured via Maryhill. The station is managed by ScotRail who provide all train services.
William Denny and Brothers Limited, often referred to simply as Denny, was a Scottish shipbuilding company.
The Panagiotis is a shipwreck lying in the white sands of an exposed cove on the coast of Zakynthos, which is among the southernmost of the Ionian Islands of Greece. Navagio ("Shipwreck"), the spot where she lies, is a tourist attraction on the north-western side of the island, with thousands of visitors each year.
The Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire Railway was a railway company in Scotland. It was promoted independently but supported by the Caledonian Railway, and it was designed to connect Balloch and Dumbarton with central Glasgow, linking in heavy industry on the north bank of the River Clyde. From Dumbarton to Balloch the line would have closely duplicated an existing railway, and negotiation led to the latter being made jointly operated, and the L&DR terminated immediately east of Dumbarton, trains continuing on the joint section.
The Caledonian and Dumbartonshire Junction Railway (C&DJR) was a Scottish railway opened in 1850 between Bowling and Balloch via Dumbarton. The company had intended to build to Glasgow but it could not raise the money.
Donald's Quay was once the location of the northern terminus of the Erskine Ferry then run by Lord Blantyre of Erskine House that provided foot passengers with a crossing of the River Clyde, giving direct access between Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire. At some point in the early 19th century the northern terminus of the Erskine Ferry moved to a site closer to Old Kilpatrick and opposite the Ferry House at Erskine, before closure in 1971 when the Erskine Bridge was completed. Donald's Quay once had an approximately 170-foot-long (52-metre) stone pier that was used by coal boats that transferred their loads into canal barges on the Forth & Clyde Canal at Ferrydyke Wharf and thereby avoided paying fees at the Bowling Basin. The quay was demolished during the construction of the Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire Railway in 1896.
The Victualling Inshore Craft, or VIC, was a type of auxiliary vessel built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War. The VIC was modelled on the Clyde puffer, and over 100 were built during the conflict.
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