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 730396

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of BL 10346/20

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 overlooking the River Clyde. The long length of the pier, built with a wood-piled frontage, allowed several steamers to draw up at the same time to collect passengers from the trains. In the background, St John's Church takes advantage of its elevated site above Kempock Point. In 1869 the Caledonian Railway Company bought Gourock pier and the surrounding land with a view to future development, planning not only a packet (steamboat) station, but eventually an ocean terminal for transatlantic liners and cargo ships. In 1889, their new pier was considered a masterpiece: it was bigger than the rival Princes Pier, Greenock, closer to the principal popular Clyde resorts, and express trains could run from the heart of Glasgow right to the gangways of the steamers. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference Bl 10346/20

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/730396

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap