Old Travel Blog Photograph Kilbowie Swing Bridge Clydebank Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of Kilbowie Swing Bridge in Clydebank, a town situated on the north bank of the River Clyde in West Dunbartonshire by Glasgow, Scotland. This swing bridge, carrying the Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire Railway over the Forth and Clyde Canal, was designed and built by Sir William Arrol and Company. Weighing 416 tons, it was swung by hand gear worked from a small platform on the side of the main girders. Before 1870, the area which later became Clydebank was largely rural, and agricultural. It consisted of some villages, Hardgate, Faifley, Duntocher, Dalmuir, Old Kilpatrick, farms and estates, with some small scale mining operations, coal, limestone and whinstone, several cotton mills and some small boat building yards. At the start of the 1870s, however, the growing trade and industry in Glasgow resulted in the Clyde Navigation Trustees needing additional space for shipping quays in Glasgow. The Queen Mary a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line was built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank.The ship was named after Queen Mary, consort of King George V. On 13 and 14 March 1941, Luftwaffe bombers attacked various targets in and around Clydebank. In what became known as the Clydebank Blitz, the town itself was seriously damaged as were the local shipyards and armaments factories such as the Dalnottar Oil depot and the Singer's Sewing Machine factory. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.



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