Queen Victoria

It was fabulous to see Cunard's  Queen Victoria back on the River Clyde yesterday.

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Infinity Reflected

Actually it is the reflection of the cruise ships Celebrity Infinity which visited Greenock last week.

The photograph was taken just as she was berthing and the men were out to attach the ropes.  She is reflected in the entrance way to Greenock Ocean Terminal.

Joining up with Weekend Reflections.

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Wartime Remains

It is not just the town of Greenock that has an interesting history.  The hills above the town are full of history too.  Up at Loch Thom are some interesting wartime remains.

The engine is part of a Cheeta engine from an Avro Anson trainer plane which crashed in the hills above Greenock on 26 July 1939.  It had been taking part in a formation exercise.  One crew member died but the pilot walked away unharmed.  The second engine can still be seen at the site of the crash.

Avro Ansons were designed for maritime reconnaissance.  It had retractable landing gear that had to be hand-cranked 160 times by the crew to unwind it!

A little piece of the past in Greenock's hilly hinterland.

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Municipal Sculptures

Here are some of the incredible sculptures from Greenock's Municipal Buildings, which was completed in the 1880s.

Greenock's motto - God Speed Greenock.

These are on the front (south facade) of the building at Clyde Square.

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Greenock is back on the map!

The cruise ship season got underway on Monday with the arrival of Thomson Spirit to Greenock and yesterday's visitor was Mein Schiff.

Fortunately our local volunteers, Inverclyde Tourist Group, have some wonderful maps to help visitors find their way around!

Lots more ships to come!

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Beacon Reflected

Greenock's Beacon clock tower reflected in the windows of the Custom House.

Joining Weekend Reflections.

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Greenock - Port of Departure

In my last post I mentioned the Scottish Diaspora, those Scots who travelled far and wide across the world in search of new lives.  Many of them would have sailed in the thousands of ships which left the port of Greenock each year taking folk away to all corners of the globe.  I came across this poem recently -

Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918) was a Canadian poet, and lived in Ontario.  You can read about him here.

I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't heard of him before.  But these few verses from his poem The World-Mother (Scotland) appealed to me (if we ignore the fact that for each of the Scotsmen who moved away, there were an equal number of Scotswomen with them who contributed just as much!).  Of course his poetry is of its time and appears very old fashioned and romanticising to us today.  But in this year of Homecoming Scotland I thought that the last line was quite apt.

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Greenock Has Been Wiped Off the Map!

I picked up a brochure yesterday - it is called Welcome to Scotland.  However, I was shocked to discover that on the main map of central and southern Scotland - Greenock is not there!

The port of Greenock will welcome at least forty cruise ships this year bringing over 100,000 passengers and crew from all around the world.  Many will probably pick up this booklet at some point on their visit to Scotland, good luck to them if they try to find the port which welcomed them!  Greenock has truly disappeared off the map!

Port Glasgow which is home to the beautiful Newark Castle is missing too!

This is the year of Homecoming Scotland, which will attract many descendents of the Scottish Diaspora back to their ancestral homeland, anyone picking up this booklet will have a problem with the map if they try to find the place that thousands of families sailed from to start new lives overseas!

OK - here's my map - here's where to find Greenock and Port Glasgow - where you are sure of a wonderful welcome! 

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A Tax On Your Windows!

The Window Tax was introduced in Scotland in 1740 and householders with more than a certain number of windows would be taxed on each additional window.  

This led to many houses being built like this -

False windows were put in place - these were set slightly back externally so that glazed windows could be easily added as the householder required and often were painted to look as if they contained panes of glass.  

Inside the house, their position was often marked by an alcove as in this photograph.  

Of course these false windows may also have been added to maintain the symmetry of the look of buildings.

The tax was stopped in Scotland in 1798, but this extract from Hutcheson's Greenock Register of 1841 shows that some sort of local variation was still in place in Greenock.

This notice gives a fascinating glimpse into the rules and regulations associated with the tax -

   No windows deemed stopped unless with stone, brick, or plaster.  
   Opening windows without notice forfeits £10.  (I presume this means unblocking!)
   Glass doors, or lights over doors, considered as windows.   
   Windows of out-houses to be reckoned.  
   A window lighting two rooms, or in two frames, to pay as two windows.  
   Every window more than 12 feet high, including the frame, or 4 feet 9 inches wide,     if more than 3 feet 6 inches high, must be charged as two windows, except where     belonging to shops, warehouses, or licensed public-houses.

In Greenock there are still may examples to be seen of this, even in buildings constructed after the mid 19th century.  I think they add a fascinating glimpse into the past and actually make the buildings look a bit more interesting! 

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Rev Dr John Adam of the Mid Parish, Greenock

Rev Dr John Adam was only the second minister of the Mid Parish Kirk in Greenock, arriving here when the church had only been open for nine years.  Until this church was built, Greenock had only one other church - the West Kirk.  As trade and industry grew in Greenock, so did the population and it was decided that another church was required.  Lord Cathcart gave the land in the centre of the commercial part of the growing town, Cathcart Square, and this beautiful church was completed, the first service taking place on 12 May 1761.

The model for the church was St Martin's in the Field in London.  The building was constructed by Greenock mason James Ewing from stone quarried locally (just behind what is now Newton Street).  The interior of the church was set out to a plan by James Watt, father of Greenock's famous engineer, James Watt.

When Rev Dr James Adam took over the charge on 12 July 1770 the church had no steeple.  This was added in 1787 and is 146 feet high, originally it had a golden cutter ship at its top as befits a port, but unfortunately this was damaged in storms and had to be replaced.  A bell and clock were also added.

Rev John Adam brought his wife, Elizabeth Parker and young family to Greenock from West Kilbride.  They would have lived in the manse nearby.  Elizabeth died in 1779 and in 1783 John married a local woman, Agnes Anderson.  When John died in 1792, Agnes remained in Greenock.  His obituary reads -

His character was also noted -

"Unaffected devotion, universal benevolence, warmth and affection with respect to his friends, attention to the distressed, and charity to the poor, were the leading features in Dr Adam's character."

I have already written about Rev John Adam's eldest son, Robert who moved to North Carolina and became a successful merchant there.  However a younger son, John William Adam (born 1768) remained in Greenock and had many business interests in the town.

It was not unusual at that time for members of the same family to represent business interests in different parts of the world, in fact it made life much easier - cutting out the middle man!  Crops of tobacco and cotton grown in America were despatched across the Atlantic to a port like Greenock in ships owned by consortiums of family members and then sold and processed this side of the Atlantic by other family members.  Fathers ensured that their sons and daughters married well - especially into families who shared their trading interests.  It is a story that repeats itself many times in Greenock's commercial history.

This beautiful church, now known as Wellpark Mid Kirk, has a wonderful history and is still a great landmark in our town.

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Doocot at Newark Castle

Doocots (or dovecotes) were once an important addition to any Scottish estate.  This beautiful example is part of Newark Castle in Port Glasgow.  Built in a conical shape, the roof was open and inside are nesting boxes for doos or pigeons which would have provided the castle inhabitants with a good source of food in the lean winter months.  There would have been a ladder for someone to go up and collect the eggs from the boxes.

The meat and eggs could be eaten - a very good source of protein in winter at a time when cattle had to be slaughtered and the meat preserved in some way to last throughout the winter, which was not always successful.  The accumulated bird droppings could be used as fertiliser in the fields.  

Doos were such a valuable resource that various laws were brought into place during the 15th and 16th centuries imposing strong penalties on anyone breaking into a doocot and stealing the birds.  The shooting of doos by bow or gun also incurred harsh punishments.  However, as their popularity increased, problems arose - the birds could decimate crops, leading to shortages.  Eventually by 1617 a law was brought in to ensure that there was only one doocot on each estate, depending on its size.  Once methods of feeding cattle over winter came into place, the need for bird meat declined and doocots fell into disuse.

It is believed that the original inhabitants of doocots were rock doves which nested on rocky cliffs, most of the earliest doocots were on the coast built to attract these wild birds.

This lovely and picturesque example at Newark Castle in Port Glasgow which once stood at a corner of the outer wall was also used as a lookout post.  Because the door could be locked it was a convenient place to keep prisoners and other undesirables!

 The Greenockian

John Galt - Founder of the City of Guelph

On 23 April (St George's day) 1827 John Galt, William Dunlop and Charles Prior took part in a ceremony which marked the founding of the beautiful Canadian city of Guelph in Ontario.  John Galt wrote in his autobiography -

"... a large maple tree was chosen; on which, taking an axe from one of the woodmen, I struck the first stroke.  To me at least the moment was impressive, - and the silence of the woods, that echoed to the sound, was as the sigh of the solemn genius of the wilderness departing for ever."

The town was named Guelph in honour of the British King George IV and was laid out to a precise plan drawn up by John Galt.  Although he is probably best known in Scotland as a novelist, Galt is esteemed in Guelph as the city's founder. 

Galt's plan reserved land for churches and schools.  As this extract from his autobiography shows, Galt considered education to be extremely important -

perhaps his own school days in Greenock had something to do with this.

He was part of the Canada Company, set up to develop land and encourage settlers to what was then known as Upper Canada.  

In his novel Bogle Corbet (1831), John Galt describes life as a settler - leaving homeland and family, starting in a new, unknown place, clearing forests, building homes, the extreme weather conditions - it is not an autobiography, but Galt was writing from his own experiences and that of many of the people he met during his time in Canada.

Galt and the Canada Company had many differences, and he returned to Britain and died here in Greenock in 1839.  However Guelph is not his only legacy in Canada.  His sons settled there and became very much part of society in their adopted land.

The Greenockian