Port Glasgow, Wet Dock

Running from May 2016 to September 2017 and part of the Canmore Mapping Programme, Yard by Yard was an area-focused, desk-based project that tested the Defining Scotland’s Places (DSP) methodology in an area for which the records in the NRHE showed considerable variation from one historic map source to another.

Following discussions with local heritage groups and with the ambition of collecting data useful to the communities’ ambition to develop a coastal heritage trail, the project aimed to map the extent of the shipyards and associated industry between Port Glasgow and Greenock. To achieve this aim, the project used historic mapping, ortho-rectified modern aerial photography and the HES aerial photograph collection to map the extents of, and upgrade the records of, the shipyards and associated features such as quays, docks, areas of land reclamation and associated industry.

A wet dock or tidal dock in the bay of Newark area immediately E of the harbour (see NS37SW 150) was first proposed in 1799. Parliament passed an Act permitting the work in 1830 and construction commenced in 1833, continuing possibly as late as 1838. A number of collapses of the harbour walls are recorded, a final one jamming the dock gates. The wet dock never functioned properly and the town was left with a debt in excess of £25,000. Prone to silting, the dock was used to store timber although some ships did use the harbour wharfs. The dock was later used for shipbuilding until the 1930s but in the late 1960s it was filled in, with most of the area being incorporated into a public open space and the eastern end being acquired by Ferguson’s shipbuilding yard (see NS37SW 37). Only the outer W quay wall and the outer harbour entrance are now visible, but are currently used by Ferguson’s as part of their shipyard.

Information from HES, Survey and Recording (AKK) 2 April 2017.