Greenock, Dempster Street

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 rope works measuring at least 300m in length from WNW to ESE by no more than about 7m in breadth for most of it length is depicted on the 2nd edition of the OS 25-inch map (Renfrew 1897, sheet 002.05). By the time the 3rd edition of the map was published in 1914 the building had been removed and the ground at its former eastern end was in use as allotments.

Information from HES, Survey and Recording (AKK) 23 June 2017.