A tale of two Clyde Titans; one is still standing.

Downstream of the River Kelvin the south bank of the Clyde is dominated by the cranes of the Govan shipyard. The north bank is crowded by modern high rise flats that tower above Meadowside Quay. They have replaced the four huge brick built grain elevators that were built here from 1914 to 1968 to store grain imported from the American prairies.

The shipyard at Govan was originally Fairfield's but is now part of BAE Systems. The yard specialises in building and assembling modules for warships. Currently it works with a yard in Portsmouth and the other BAE Systems yard at Scotsoun, further down the Clyde, to build Type 45 destroyers for the Navy.

Jim works in the Clyde shipbuilding industry and it was most interesting to hear from him, the function and history of each part of this huge yard. Until 2007 this view would have been dominated by one of the Clyde's five Titan cranes. It was built in 1911 by Sir William Arrol and at the time was the biggest crane in the World. It was demolished to make way for the building of modules for two huge new aircraft carriers.

Looking back up the river, we reflected upon its past. The Clyde was one of the seminal centres of the Industrial Revolution and it led the World in shipbuilding. By the start of WW1, annual production reached 750,000 tons of ships and that represented 20% of World launches. Now there are only three yards left on the Clyde.

We crossed to the north side of the Clyde and arrived at Diesel Wharf in Scotstoun.

This was the site of the huge Barclay Curle shipyard. All that is left is another Titan crane and the engine shed. The crane was built in 1920 by Sir William Arrol. It was used to lift engines through the sliding roof of the engine shed and into newly launched ships, which were tied alongside the wharf. This crane was the model for the Meccano hammerhead crane. During the 20th century 42 Titan cranes were built across the World and Arrol's built 40 of them.

Although the shipyard closed in 1968, the engine works continued until 1977. The shed now houses an industrial estate and the crane was last used in the 1990's to load a ship with heavy machinery constructed by one of the tenants. Nowadays the wharf is piled high with scrap metal, for export to somewhere in the World where they still build things.

Forward paddling, through the years, on the Clyde.

Beneath the Glasgow Tower, we came across the paddle steamer Waverley tied up for the winter.

She was built in 1947 at the A & J Inglis yard on the Clyde. We crunched through the ice...

...to take a closer look at her. She is the last sea going paddle steamer in the World and was built for the run from Craigendorran Pier down to the Clyde ports. Her summer season now extends round the UK's coastline.

Her great paddle wheels literally thrash the water as she pulls away...

...as can be seen in this photo from July 2010.

In contrast, Jim's forward paddling technique has much more finesse!

We took a diversion into the canting basin, which is all that is left of the Princes Dock. Unfortunately it was frozen over so we could not explore the seaplane terminal. The seaplane operates a summer service from the city centre to Oban and Tobermory. At least we knew we would not need to keep an eye on the skies for landing seaplanes!

We now turned our bows to the north bank and Yorkhill Quay. Yorkhill hospital, where I work, is the building on the horizon behind the tall ship.

Speaking of which, the tall ship is the Glenlee. She is a steel hulled, three masted barque (78.4m x 11.4m) and was launched in 1896 at the Anderson, Roger and Company yard at Port Glasgow.

 After a long hard life, she returned to the Clyde in 1993 and has been faithfully restored. The Italianate tower on the quay is part of the Hydraulic Pumping Station, which stands at the former entrance to the Queen's dock. The dock has now been filled in but the station provided power for a swing bridge at its entrance and for several of the dockside cranes.

Moored beside the Glenlee, we found the old Kelvinhaugh ferry "No 8". She was built in 1954 and served on the route until it closed in 1980. Like the Glenlee, she has been lovingly restored by the Clyde Maritime Trust.

The Kelvinhaugh ferry ran from this old slipway, just a few meters from the Glenlee, to Highland Lane on the south bank of the Clyde.

Now it is helicopters, like this air ambulance, that depart from Kelvinhaugh!

We took a last look up the Clyde before turning downstream...

... towards the cranes of the Govan shipyard and the new Riverside Museum of transport...

...which is rising dramatically from Pointhouse Quay near the confluence of the Clyde with the River Kelvin. The stunning building was designed by architect Zaha Hadid and stands on the site of the former A&J Inglis ship yard that built the PS Waverley. This post has now come full circle...

The Clyde, a river of change.

From the Kingston Bridge we continued down the River Clyde towards the Clyde Arc bridge. It was completed in 2006 by Halcrow. It is a tied bowstring arch of steel box section, which supports a precast reinforced concrete deck. From this view, the Glasgow Tower (beyond the bridge) looked like an arrow set for launch from the Arc's bow!

The Arc crosses the Clyde at an angle and is therefore, quite logically, better known by its alternative name: the "Squinty Bridge". It was built to service the growing media centre which has developed on the south bank of the Clyde.

The tower of the University of Glasgow can be seen from the now empty Finnieston Quay. At one time it would have been lined with rows of ships, several deep, which would also have extended into the now filled in Queen's dock.

The Finnieston crane now stands motionless above the river. It is the furthest upstream of several Titan cantilever cranes on the Clyde. It was used to load steam railway locomotives from the Springburn locomotive works onto ships. At the height of its industrial power, Glasgow manufactured 25% of the World's railway locomotives.

The tower was built by Cowans, Sheldon of Carlisle, on piles by Sir Willam Arrol of Glagow and the cantilever was by the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company.

Continuing down the north bank and Finnieston Quay, we approached the Clyde Auditorium, which you will be unsurprised to learn, is popularly known as the "Armadillo". It was designed by Foster and Partners and built on the site of the now filled in Queen's dock.

The Glasgow Harbour Tunnel was built in 1896 and connects Finnieston Quay on the north to Plantation Quay on the south.  Two rotundas provided a lift down to two vehicle and one passenger tunnels. This is the Plantation rotunda the Finnieston rotunda is just to the east of the crane. The vehicle tunnels were closed in the mid 20th century but the passenger tunnel remained open until 1980. The tunnel was never a financial success as it faced strong competition from the Finnieston Ferry, which had an unusual lifting vehicle deck so that it could load and off load at a vertical quay side, regardless of the height of the tide. It started service in 189o and operated until 1966.

Plantation Quay on the south bank has been renamed Pacific Quay and is now the centre of Glasgow's Digital Media Quarter. This is the Scottish Television building.

Pacific Quay is now linked to Finnieston by two footbridges. The first, Bell's Bridge, was built in 1988 to service the Glasgow Garden Festival which took place on the filled three arms of Princes Dock, which lay behind Pacific Quay. Bell's Bridge was engineered by Crough and Hogg and its two main spans are supported by cable stays from a rotating pointed tower, which opens the bridge and allows bigger ships to pass through. Until 2001 the paddle steamer Waverley regularly went through the bridge to her berth at the Broomielaw but she now berths below the bridge at Pacific Quay.

Once through Bell's Bridge, our view of Pacific Quay was dominated by the BBC Scotland building, the Glasgow Science Centre and the Glasgow Tower. At 127m high, it is Scotland's tallest building. It has a teardrop cross section and rotates 360 degrees, so that its slimmest outline faces into the wind.

The curious bulbous building behind the Science Centre is Glasgow's IMAX cinema. So far it has avoided being called the "Glasgow Blob".

We now passed under the most recent of the City centre bridges. It is the Millennium Bridge completed in 2002 and engineered by MG Bennet Associates. It is built of steel lattice supporting a sheet steel deck. Hydraulic rams lift the two centre spans to allow vessels to get further up the Clyde.

One thing is for sure, this river city has changed out of all recognition over the last 3 decades and it is changing still!

Famous for not being able to walk in a straight line.

Below the King George the Fifth bridge, the north side of the Clyde is bounded by Broomielaw quay. This was the main Glasgow terminal for passenger ships and it was from here that the World's first commercial paddle steam ship started in 1812. In later years generations of Glaswegians took their holidays "doon the water" by taking a steamer from the Broomielaw to the Clyde resorts. Now it is the home of Glasgow's International Financial Services District.

On the south bank, the Tradeston district has not fared so well. This sad old three storey Georgian villa at One Tradeston Street is the only survivor of a long terrace.

The Tradeston pedestrian  bridge was opened in 2009 with the idea of injecting some life into the area. According to Glasgow City Council, "It links the successful International Financial Services District (IFSD) with newly developing Tradeston area on the south bank and was built along with a new riverside public realm project on both banks to provide a new destination on the river". So there!

It is a steel cantilever bridge and was engineered by Halcrow.

Of course us Weegies don't call it the Tradeston bridge. Oh no, it's the Squiggly Bridge. Apparently the gentle double curve allows enough rise in the centre of the bridge for barges to pass below, without the need for steps, that the locals might trip over. It's just as well Weegies are famous for not being able to walk in a straight line.
 

Further downstream  we came to the 1970 Kingston Bridge, which carries 10 lanes of the M8 motorway, right into the heart of Glasgow. The design, which I believe is called brutal modernism, was implemented by W A Fairhurst & Partners  and is a cantilevered prestressed concrete construction. The span is 18m above the river because when it was built, the Clyde was still dredged up to the King George the Fifth bridge. Indeed, I remember redundant oil tankers being berthed upstream of the bridge in the 1970's oil crisis.

By 1990 the supporting piers were collapsing into the Clyde and, by the end of the millennium, a major engineering project was required to repair the bridge.  The deck was lifted by 20mm on huge hydraulic jacks to allow the construction of new piers without interrupting the traffic. I know the bridge quite well, I have crossed it about 12,000 times, but I hadn't seen it from this angle before.

Berthed below the Kingston Bridge is the sad remains of the old Renfrew Ferry which crossed the Clyde 8km downstream from here. It's now an entertainment venue where local bands play...

...but it used to rock to the clanking of chains by which it dragged itself across the strong currents in the Clyde. It made its last crossing in 1984.

All Greatness Stands Firm in The Storm.

Downstream of the suspension bridge we approached the Glasgow Bridge (or Jamaica Bridge because it is at the bottom of Jamaica Street). It was built in 1899 by Blyth and Westland.

It replaced an earlier bridge built by by Thomas Telford in 1833 and is of similar design but some 20 feet wider. The Telford bridge replaced an earlier bridge built in 1772.
 

There were unexpected arches through the piers...

...it was a stunning location, looking across the river through these many arches within arches.

We emerged from Glasgow Bridge  to be met by the first and second Caledonian Railway Bridges which were built to carry many rail tracks into Central Station. The first Caledonian Railway Bridge dates from 1878. The wrought iron bridge deck carried four tracks and was supported by great pillars of Dalbeattie granite. The deck was removed in 1967.

There are inscriptions in Greek and English on the side of the redundant pillars that face upstream. The English text reads "All Greatness Stands Firm in The Storm". It looked as if it had been inscribed by the builders of the bridge as a Neoclassical Victorian statement of confidence in Glasgow's future.

However, there is a very interesting story behind these inscriptions, they are surprisingly recent. They were carved in 1990 to a design by artist Ian Hamilton Finlay who won a commission from the New Works for Different Places; Four Cities Project organised by Television South West Arts. Finlay explicitly omitted any plaque with his name or any explanation, or even suggestion, that it was an art work. He also intended that it could only be viewed from the river.

We certainly appreciated this surprising discovery on these now apparently purposeless pillars.

Next we paddled under the second Caledonian Railway Bridge which was built in 1905 and carried nine rail tracks into Central Station. It was engineered by Mathieson and Barry using steel lattice girders supported by granite piers.

Immediately downstream of the railway bridges, we came to the George the Fifth Bridge. This was built in 1928 by Considere Construction using reinforced concrete box girder construction, which was faced with decorative granite masonry. For many years the George the Fifth Bridge was the lowest crossing point on the River Clyde. It was not until 1970 that the completion of the Kingston Bridge removed that honour from this fine bridge. The Kingston Bridge proved to be the start of a second phase of bridge construction on the Clyde and we were about to discover whether these new bridges  could match the interest of the old....

Sea kayaking the River Clyde: Glasgow Green to the Merchant City.

On our voyage down the tidal River Clyde by sea kayak from Glasgow Green, the first bridge we came to was the riveted wrought iron Albert Bridge, built in 1871 by Bell and Millar. Through the arches, the next one downstream is the City Union Railway Bridge built in 1899.

Just downstream of the Albert Bridge, the Glasgow College of Nautical Studies is appropriately situated right on the south bank.

We paddled below the City Union Railway Bridge. It was the first steel bridge on the Clyde and carried 4 tracks into the now demolished St Enoch's station. It is a very low bridge because it was built under a now demolished higher bridge so that there would be no disruption to the rail service.

The Merchant City, an old part of Glasgow, lies north of the river here. Many of the old steeples have characteristic blue clock faces. This is the Merchants Steeple, which was built in 1665. It is all that remains of the Merchants Guild Hall and Hospital which was built from 1659 but demolished  in 1817. The merchants could watch for their ships coming up the Clyde from its high balconies. In 1873, the Briggait Fish Market was built on the site round the steeple.

We next paddled under the 1854 Victoria Bridge, which is now Glasgow's oldest surviving complete bridge. It replaced the Bishop's Bridge, which was built in 1345. This in turn was built on the site of the first recorded Glasgow bridge, the wooden "Glaskow Bryg", which was built in 1285.

On the south bank the Clyde lies the area known as the Gorbals. The imposing Georgian Carlton Place was built in the early 1800's as a speculative  attempt to create a wealthy suburb for the city's merchants on the south of the river. It failed as the city grew so quickly that the surrounding land was used to build cheap tenement slums. These housed the hordes of workers that flocked here from the impoverished Highlands and Ireland. The merchants moved west of the city as the prevailing westerly winds meant they smelled the Gorbals less frequently.

The South Portland Street Suspension Bridge is downstream from Carlton Place. It was completed in 1853 by George Martin but only the stone towers are original. the deck and hangers  were renewed in 1870 and 1926.

Behind the suspension bridge on the north bank, the Victorian Riverside House on Clyde street now stands alone, surrounded by modern buildings.

You can find out more about the Clyde from Clyde Waterfront Heritage.