General view of Station and freight warehouses from river

Description General view of Station and freight warehouses from river

Date 1890

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number SC 730395

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of BL 10346/19

Scope and Content Gourock Pier Railway Station, Kempock Point, Gourock, Inverclyde (now demolished) Gourock Pier Railway Station, considered to be the most advanced railway pier of its time, was designed by the Glasgow architect, James Miller, and built in 1889 as a major railway steamer interchange for the Caledonian Railway Company. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the station in 1890. The station, a long, single-storeyed structure with brick walls and a glass roof, had 20 half-timbered gables and a sturdy clock tower (far right) overlooking the River Clyde. The pier, a long structure with a wood-piled frontage, allowed several of the company's paddle steamers to pull alongside parallel to the trains at the quayside. The Caledonian Railway Company created its own steamboat-owning subsidiary, the Caledonian Steam Packet Company, and had four vessels ready when the company's first train steamed into Gourock in 1889. The four paddle steamers, characteristic with their gleaming black hulls, white superstructures and yellow funnels, travelled 'doon the water' to the holiday resorts of the Firth of Clyde, and established a dynasty that was to become famous in Clyde steamer annals. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference BL 10346/19

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/730395

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap