Archaeology Notes
Event ID 802797
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/802797
NS47SE 59.00 45191 73548
NS47SE 59.01 NS c. 4515 7356 West lock
NS47SE 59.02 NS 45246 73526 East lock
NS47SE 59.03 NS 45250 75347 Lock-keeper's cottage
See also:
NS47SW 64.00 NS 4466 7358 Bowling Harbour (Forth and Clyde Canal and River Clyde)
NS47SE 71 NS 45119 73550 Railway swing bridge and approach viaducts
NS47SE 72 NS 45090 73555 Custom House (Lower Basin)
NS47SE 82 Forth and Clyde Canal, Bowling to Kilbowie
NS47SE 113.00 NS 45032 73725 Canal House (Lower) Basin
2001 photographic survey material is stored under 'Forth and Clyde Canal' in the NMRS.
(Undated) information in NMRS.
At Bowling there are two basins - one dating from 1848, the other from the 1880's, a railway swing bridge (1896), a two-storey custom house, and a basin for sea-going ships.
J R Hume 1976.
Upper basin and lock: Large rectangular basin, with bascule bridge at the W end [NS47SE 58] and lock at E end [NS 4524 7352]
The upper basin is still in use as a yacht harbour, and at the time of visit, the lock at the E end (NS47SE 59.02, NS 4525 7352) still retained its balance beams. The lock-keeper's cottage (NS47SE 59.03, NS 4525 7354) is a very substantial building. The canal (NS47SE 82) was probably re-aligned here when the Lanarkshire and Dumbartonshire Railway was constructed, as the walls of the basin and lock are of concrete, not the normal sandstone.
Visited and photographed by J R Hume, Department of Economic History, University of Strathclyde, 11 June 1966.
See also MS/749 (Dunbartonshire, Old Kilpatrick/ Bowling parishes, Bowling Harbour), photographs with reporter, J R Hume.
Following the closure of the canal in 1963 the lakes and basins at Bowling were maintained as part of a small section of working canal in order that fresh water moorings could be supplied for boats on the Clyde.
G Hutton 1993.
Lindsay (1968) states that the construction of Bowling Harbour (NS47SW 64.00), and its adjoining lock (NS47SW 64.03) at NS 4497 7353, was authorised by an Act of August 1846, the work being completed by 1849. According to the Local and Personal Acts August 1846, found in The Advocates Library, the Act, passed on 18th August, was entitled 'An Act to enable the Company of Proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Navigation to extend and enlarge the basin at Bowling Bay, and to make and maintain certain other works in connection therewith, and to alter and amend the Acts relating to the said Navigation.'
Lindsay observes that there are two basins at Bowling, one of which dates from 1790 (NS47SE 113.00), being then extended between 1846 and 1849.
She later refers to the 1867 'Act for vesting in the Caledonian Railway Company the Undertaking of the Company of Proprietors of the Forth and Clyde Navigation', whereby the North British Railway Company's interests were safeguarded by various clauses, including the right to use the basins and quays at Bowling.
According to Lindsay, Whitworth, who became the Company's chief engineer in June 1785, heeded complaints by Highland drovers that their cattle refused to traverse the pivot bridges N of Falkirk and made the decision that all new bridges should be in the form of drawbridges having fixed railings on each side.
Information from RCAHMS (MD) 1 August 2000.
Vertical air photography: FCC 7343/45/564-5, flown 9 June 1975.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 13 December 2000.
