Blairvadach Working Camp

Blairvadach Working Camp was a Prisoner of War (PoW) camp, Camp 582, located on the eastern shore of the Gare Loch, to the north of Rhu and Helensburgh.

The site is now home to the Blairvadach Sailing and Outdoor Centre, and has been largely lost as a result of road straightening. It had lain to the north of the A814, as it followed the shore, however the road no longer follows this route, cutting straight through the earlier location, and featuring the outdoor centre on its south side.

The site had some 40 Nissen huts, and possibly other buildings, which would have housed prisoners of war assigned to work in the area, and was visible in aerial photographs taken of the area in 1946 which showed the camp on the southwestern edge of the former grounds of Blairvadach House.

A local article about the camp, and also the Stukenduff Base Camp, notes that it was "classed as a work camp for the German servicemen". It goes on to describe how the prisoners made up for the shortage of working men in the area, and were sent to work in local farms and gardens. When they were later repatriated, the camp was used to house Italian prisoners until the war in the Far East had ended. After this, the camp was used as temporary accommodation while new housing was built in Rhu, Garelochhead and Cardross.^[1]