Basin, view from south east

Description Basin, view from south east

Date 18/9/2001

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 1935696

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of E 6477 CN

Scope and Content Canal House Basin, Bowling Basin, Forth & Clyde Canal, West Dunbartonshire, from south-east This shows pleasure and fishing boats docked in the Canal House Basin which was opened in 1790 by the Forth & Clyde Canal Company and extended between 1846 and 1849. The boats on the right are next to a channel which leads underneath a railway swing bridge and into the upper basin of the canal. Three of the arches of a railway viaduct to the west of this bridge are also visible on the right. This basin was originally the only dock for boats using the canal and the large ships that brought goods and produce to Scotland from abroad. Space was greatly increased when Bowling Harbour was built and the last addition to docking facilities was around 1896 when the smaller upper basin was added by the Caledonian Railway's Canal Department. The Forth & Clyde Canal was built between 1768 and 1790. It could have been completed sooner but funds ran out in 1777 and more money was not found by the government until 1784. John Smeaton (1724-92) was the designer and first chief engineer for the project. He was replaced in 1777 by Robert Mackell (d.1779), and in 1785 Robert Whitworth (1734-99) took over the building of the final section of the canal from Glasgow. When the canal was completed in 1790 it ran from the River Forth at Grangemouth, in the east, to Bowling on the River Clyde in the west of Scotland. The canal was linked to Edinburgh when the Union Canal was opened in 1822. The Forth & Clyde Canal was closed in 1963 and the Union Canal in 1965 and the construction of new roads meant that it was impossible for boats to travel along the full length of these watercourses. However, the £84.5m Millennium Link project enabled the canals to reopen in 2002. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/1935696

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap