Port Glasgow, Mirren’s Shore

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.

This timber yard, the N end of which fronted onto Steamboat Quay, is depicted on the OS large scale Town Plan (Port Glasgow 1857, sheet II.11.9). Of irregular plan it measured a maximum of 68m from NW to SE by 26m transversely and enclosed an area of 0.15ha. The yard contained no buildings and the 2nd edition of the OS 25-inch map (Renfrewshire 1997, sheet II.11) shows that by the end of the 19th century a gas works had been built on it. This was later replaced by a fire station and a refuse destructor, and the area is now given over to a mix of service and light industry.

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