This sprawls into buildings as well, but I thought I'd mention a wander I took along the Clyde, ending up at Dalmarnock.

I found...

Dalmarnock road bridge, which turns out to be the third over the Clyde at that point, having been preceded by two wooden bridges since 1821.

Dalmarnock rail bridge 2, which is built almost on top of Dalmarnock rail bridge 1. The first bridge is gone, apart from the impressive cast iron pillars that supported it, still surviving in full.

An ancient boatyard, beside the rail bridge, and still operating today.

Three unidentified piers west of the road bridge - these are new as in present day items from the past decade or two, but already abandoned and rotting - and there's no indication why they are there, unless they were just a good idea when the Clyde Walkway was added a few years ago.

Most interesting at the time was the wall along the river. The engineer in me smelt something interesting here, and closer examination revealed the wall was massively strong, made of steel reinforced concrete and 50 ft high at a guesstimate. When I got back and did a bit of digging I found it had to be strong, as it was holding up the former Dalmarnock Road Power Station, and stopping it from sliding into the Clyde. The whole station is now gone completely apart from this wall. Although the piers I mentioned earlier had nothing to do with it, the same spot was where the coal boats came along the Clyde to deliver to the power station.

You never know what your going to find, and I didn't even mention the Belvidere Housing development on the old hospital site.

It must have been a while since coal boats came that far up the river as it is above the weir or did they come down the river?

I can't tell the direction from what little I've read, but in terms of time the station was there from 1915, and demolished 1980/81. Coal is referred to as "coal up the the river", but no source is given.

When was the weir at Glasgow Green constructed ?

Do you remember a WW2 landing craft was found on the river bed around the flats at Dalmarnock  about 8-9 years ago? I can't remember how close to he bridge it was. There was absolutely no record of it being lost, so it might just have been quietly 'disposed of' immediately postwar to save bookkeeping.

To use a well worn word, that's interesting, but I have to admit that the story is new to me, and I wasn't aware of it - but - I have a sort of 'memory hole' around that period, so would probably have missed the story then. Something may turn up.

I'm sure I saw it in Scotland on Sunday at the time. I'll try and check later.

I have to say I was rather disappointed this evening...

I have two books that cover the Clyde from a walking perspective, which one totals to about 200 miles of related paths, so they are not just a page or two. Expecting to get a little more detail around Dalmarnock, I got nothing for my efforts of digging then out, and both flew past with almost no mention. Another did have details of the Clyde bridges, and correctly noted that the Dalmarnock road bridge was the first in Glasgow to have a completely flat road surface, but singularly failed to mention either of the rail bridges located little more than a stone's throw away.

Regarding the Tidal Weir under the Pipe Bridge, I was going to say you'll be looking at around 100 years old as a guess, as it is bound to date back to Victorian engineering times, and that might be as good a guess as you will get. Then, I surprised myself by finding it on an architecture site (surprise) dating it as more than 100 years old old (honest, my guess came first), and providing some nice pics of the project too.

The exact dates turn out to be 1901 for what can be seen today, and 1852 for a weir and navigation lock that preceded it. Both intended to halt the tidal effect and prevent silting up further along the river.

Well found.   The navigation lock solves the mystery.

You may doubt it, but it's in the museum records regarding the station, and there are photographs of the jetty. It does specifically mention boats rather than barges, but that may not be significant, just generalisation. Or somebody's made... an assumption.

Today, there are three piers on the same spot, but these are modern, and must have been added as part of the Clyde Walkway construction, but there is no reference to them or their purpose in the book I have that describes the walkway. The books are pretty waffley, and worry more about where the walker walks, rather than any modern history - there's lots of stuff relating to the past of the area the walks go through, but not where the path actually runs.

They are just plain piers, and although each only separated by a few feet, are nonetheless separate, but with no obvious purpose, and, in keeping with modern "Health & Safety" requirements, are now equipped with a metal fence to deny general access to them by casual, non-climbing members of the public.

Unfortunately, although there are plenty of references to the Clyde Walkway to be found on the web, no-one has yet bothered to actually write anything of note on any of the pages such searches will take you to.

SCRAN pic showing the station and river...



Bigger/better pics show the openings to the river just right of centre, and further to the left of centre.

Don't know if there's anything better to be found online.

Nice one!

I will get pics up later, but for now, everything is gone apart from the wall, and the bank between the bushes visible to the left, and to the right restored so that there was somewhere to put the path etc on. This is where the three modern piers have been added,

On the extreme right you vcan just make out the line of the steps leading down from the original path on the bank. The two squares like windows just above it are still there with that bit of wall. Two openings in the wall which can be seen behind the bank structures can still be seen, bricked up now.

The coal on the river story actually bears a bit of rubbishing, as the coal storage yard and conveyors feeding into the station are way over to the left.

This begs the question as to why a transfer station would be established at the point shown, and not adjacent to the coal storage yard, necessitating movement from the delivery point to storage. Could just be as simple as a conveyor belt, but it would be good if a record or pics confirming this were available, or evidence to the contrary

Have you forgotten http://www.old-maps.co.uk  ?   They have a 1914 map which does not show the power station and two from the 1930s that do.  

They must be getting stroppy  again as when it loads it is black with the message 'preview not for resale' and it all disappears rather slowly.

Amazing how something interesting can spring up

Thinking on a bit about the river, as we established the Glasgow weir at 1901 (after the gate/weir it replaced was lost) then we can assume with reasonable safety that nothing was arriving from overseas with 'cheap' coal and sailing it up the river to the station.

Dalmarnock was typical of the time c1915 and started of at less than 100 kW and ended up around 200 kW when development ceased - note the big pic from the Captain is pre-development, and minus the big chimney of the later years - so would have had a large, but not huge when compared to today's coal giants that literally needed to be built next to coal mines.

We know that the Uddingston/Blantyre area was riddles with coal mines back then, and some were right on the river, even though all evidence of them has now been erased by the eco-freaks, historical records do have use!

It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that to ensure continuity of supply there would have been both rail and river routes for coal to the station, though it's probably safe also to assume that rail was the primary.

What I do wonder about now, having seen much of the river between Dalmarnock and the mines, is what it was like in those days, and what sort of craft would have been used for transport. Lots of small craft seems to be the most likely, for reasons of draught and maneuverability on some of the bends. The river is far from deep, and today there are small weirs and obstructions that would preclude such a route being used, though these may not have been present in the past.

I don't have any knowledge other than what can be seen today, so really am just speculating, and thinking out loud to see if anything makes sense.

Thought for the day. If Dalmarnock bridge was Glasgow's first flat bridge does it not warrant a place in firsts?