PINKSTON - Where Two Canals Meet
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2024
- Around the year 1900, Glasgow decided to move away from horse-drawn trams and all that manure and electrify its trams.
It was a massive undertaking that not only involved somehow producing all the electricity needed to move all the trams, but also meant somehow fixing miles of steel cable over the city's streets.
So they built a power station - Pinkston Power Station - at the junction of two canals: the Forth & Clyde Canal and the Monklands Canal.
The huge cooling tower once attached to that power station was built much later than the power station itself. It was constructed in the 1950s, and for much of the second half of the twentieth century it dominated the Glasgow skyline, finding its way into many photographs. Such was its size that it did at times look as if a power station had been built in the very heart of Glasgow. In many ways it had.
The part of the canal on which the cooling tower was later built (a filled-in basin that is now part of Pinkston Water Sports) was built not long after completion of both canals in the 1790s, and was constructed to join the Forth & Clyde Canal and Monklands Canal together.
The problem I have is that I'm just not sure where exactly this short section of canal - referred to as the 'Cut of Junction' - actually ran to and from. It seems likely that it ran from the terminus of each canal. But where was each terminus?
Online sources say that this 'Cut of Junction' ran between the twin basin that today is occupied by Pinkston Water Sports and a basin on the Monklands Canal not far from Glasgow Cathedral. Certainly a mid-19th century map clearly mentions the 'Cut of Junction' at the twin basins. But where did it start and end?
I think it highly likely that the branch of the Forth & Clyde Canal, also called the Great Canal, leading from Stockingfield Junction to Port Dundas actually ended at Port Dundas. We can clearly see the location of the area called Port Dundas back then on old maps. I think it unlikely that this canal carried on further.
Peter Fleming's map of 1807, drawn after completion of both canals and the cut linking them, mentions the Monklands Canal, but the name is given at a location that we have come to know as part of the Forth & Clyde Canal.
Are many current online sources wrong and Peter Fleming correct? Did the 'Cut of Junction' actually run between the Monklands Basin close to Glasgow Cathedral and a basin at Port Dundas?
So many questions, and very few answers. We are of course having to refer to old maps that are often inaccurate.
The first Statistical Account dating to 1794, right at the time when both canals were being built, had this to say:
'The Forth and Clyde navigation was begun to be cut on the 10th of July 1768, and was opened as far as Stockingfield, in this parish, 10th July 1775; a side-cut was brought forward to Hamilton-Hill, November 1777, where a large basin was formed for the reception of vessels, and large granaries and other buildings erected. They are now carrying forward this side-cut, in order to form a junction with the Monkland Canal, which runs eastward through this parish to the collieries in Monkland Parish, and extends to 12 miles in length. On this side-cut, a new basin is to be formed at Hundred Acre Hill in this parish, within half a mile of Glasgow; here granaries, and other buildings are to be erected, and a new village built, to be called Port Dundas.'
This description suggests to me that the 'Cut of Junction' linking both canals actually ran from Hamilton Hill, through Port Dundas and on to link with the Monklands Canal. To be honest, I'm still unsure where it joined with the Monklands Canal, but without doubt the section of canal at Port Dundas and Spiers Wharf was a part of that joining cut, and I'm not convinced that everyone else realises that.
Anyway, back to the power station. These days much of the industry that once lined the canals has gone. Even the trams have gone, so there's no need for Pinkston Power Station and its huge cooling tower. And all that's left these days is the canal itself, a place of leisure where you can stroll and wonder. I'm good at wondering!
Once again, a very interesting video, Eddy. It was just over 50 years ago that my father (a Glaswegian who left his home city for Australia as a 17 year old in 1950) took his family to Glasgow (including me, as a 14 year old boy). We stayed with my grandmother in one of the high-rise flats at Sighthill (Pinkston Drive). My father told us that the concrete cooling tower was a porridge pot and was used to feed the people of Glasgow. Best wishes from Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺
Cheers Ken. It's a lovely story; if only it were true. Porridge for all!
Eddy, keep walking, keep talking and keep exploring, you are doing a great service to a tired auld city.🤠
Cheers Edward.
For those who are unaware, the final stretch of The Monklands Canal still exists the other side of the M73 and continues on to almost Chapelhall near Airdrie. It’s definitely worth walking along and is stocked with coarse fish for anglers.
Around the time of the M8 construction, plans were in place to build the M81 motorway along the course of the Forth and Clyde Canal out to Canniesburn Toll. Great public outcry from the people of Glasgow’s west end stopped it in its tracks and the project was scrapped. Thank goodness in my opinion. If only the same could have been done for the people of the east end of Glasgow.
Both the Monklands and Forth and Clyde Canals were owned by private companies, so I think the ownership may be the clue to solving to whom owned which stretch and therefore its name thereafter.
PS: Thanks for the excellent video.
Thanks Robert.
Thanks Ed. From the Windsor Bar, Established 1883, Dundalk, Ireland. Kind regards Niall O'Connell Eire
Cheers Niall. 👍
Thanks for another educational video, I really enjoy them
Thank you.
Hi Ed, thoroughly enjoyed your video, so informative 🏴 Thought the Crane was an ornament until it moved.😂
Thanks 👍
I don't know why but I have a strange fascination with that tower, love seeing old pictures of it, thanks for the video 🙌
Did you know that the new bridge your on at the end of your video is nicknamed “The Jobbie Bridge” ?! 😂😂😂
Good video Ed 👌🏼
Oh no. I should have suspected as much. Glaswegians are very disrespectful of their bridges.
The new bridge is built with weathering steel, it's suppose to look that way.
I know. I was just kidding.
These talks are so interesting. Thank you from Idaho, USA.
Thanks Mary. All the best to Idaho.
Loved the ramble, had a wee laugh, shades..I say shades of the gobbledygook from Stanley Unwin.
A smile is better than a frown.
Atb
Another interesting and excellent video.
Thanks Nice one Ed
Many thanks Peter.
really enjoyed that,, thanks Eddy,
oh oh! the subscribers are still going up, I think the parrot needs to get on top of the situation .
Or is he wondering what is going on also?
Many thanks. Yes, the parrot's an even bigger wonderer than me.
That was really interesting and enjoyable. Thanks once again eddie. I must confess i was waiting to see what you had brought for a snack but you were just building up your appetite. Congratulations on the success of your work and thanks again. Cheers from down under.
Thanks Thomas. I generally lose my appetite when there's so much wondering to be done.
Very interesting video Ed. Your curiosity yields some really great things. Keep on wondering and walking.
Cheers.
Lynn in Naples. 😎
Cheers Lynn. All the best.
Fantastic film Ed. Always wondered where that tower actually was located. Under the junction of Royston Rd and Castle St a part of the Monkland canal stone work can still be seen where the water was is now a walking underpass. I always thought and i have a fuzzy memory of seeing it on a programme that the canals met in front of the area of what is Baird St Police Office..but who knows !!
Thanks Steven. I'll need to check out the Castle Street/Royston Road area - that is one serious spaghetti junction of roads. I think you're not far off with the police station location.
Loved that..Thank you .
Fascinating ed ❤
I lived in Sighthill, the school too us all up the Cuddies to watch the power station be demolished.
They put a wee stone circle at the footbridge into Townhead to commemorate it.
I remember being all proud, cos we were in the paper.
I enjoy your rambling and wondering. Kinda go hand in hand.
Will be back in Scotland Tuesday to do some rambling and wondering myself. Cheers.
Have a great wonder.
Well done to the Wondering Wanderer👍🤓
Hi Ed, the flour mills your map shows next to the canal, I always thought they were whisky warehouses. Probably because there were distilleries just roon the corner.
Hi Colin. Yes, I thought the same. I suspect they were used for a variety of things, and probably did store whisky for a while. But it's a long row of different buildings of varying age, and certainly the map reveals one use.
Sighthill certainly looks different to how I remember it. My gran lived on Pinkston Drive, the stench from that place filled the air for years after.
Stinky Ocean it was called, rumour there was a Animal Slaughter House for many years and the remains of manyf thousands of Animals buried there and when there was heavy rain it forced the stinky smell out.
Great video Ed, one thing that i always think of is how quiet things must have been back then, away from the workplaces of course.
Edit: also, did you know Burke and Hare worked on the Forth to Clyde Canal, something i learned from wikipedia recently.
Thanks Stuart. Many things to learn.
My understanding was that the "cut of junction" joined the Monkland Canal from its Townhead basin terminal by Glebe Street/ Parliamentary Road to the Forth & Clyde at Port Dundas. It was a shared channel rather than belonging to one ore other of the canals. Obviously open to further information. The water of the Monkland still runs under the M8 & acts as a feeder to the F&C. I'd flood the motorway tomorrow& re-instate the canal. My childhood playground.
I think the steel used for the bridge at the end of your video was infused with a copper alloy which protects the steel which only surface rusts. This procedure has been used extensively here in Canada and requires little maintenance although I have to admit it does not look great.
Hi Tom. Yeh, I was only kidding about the bridge rust - it's meant to be like that. Just my warped sense of humour. I think the rust definitely has a nice broon colour.
According to staff at BWB Spiers Wharf (in 1962), the Glasgow Branch ended here. The Monkland then continued as a separately funded construction, and the cooling tower took water from the canal to help evaporation. It isn’t the Forth & Clyde, that runs from Bowling to Grangemouth only. Glasgow Merchants were annoyed the canal would miss them out, so the short Glasgow Branch assuaged their annoyance - this too was seperately funded. It was coal that paid for the Monkland, serving both mining and steel works at AIRDRIE and Coatbridge. The Riddrie Incline was famous at the time as water levels initially were too creat, and boats were dry-hauled to the next stage (at Townhead).
Thanks Raymond. I've included a quote from the 1794 Statistical Account in the video description. It's very interesting, more so as it was written at the very time the canals were built and joined. It does appear to suggest that the canal branch running from Stockingfield actually only went as far as Hamilton Hill, which would mean that Spiers Wharf and Port Dundas formed part of the new cut linking it with the Monklands Canal.
@@EdExploresScotland The Stockinfield realignment added to the length of the Glasgow Branch but we rarely think about it these days. This was because the trams electrification meant the road crossings / aqueducts had to be rebuilt at a high cost - and all of similar design (at Maryhill Road (F&C), Bilsland Drive and Possil Road (Glasgow Branch). This concluded the final construction phase and start of the managed decline. Incidentally, the Kelvin Aqueduct almost bankrupted the company as it was the most expensive engineering item ever devised on the route. For a future vid - you can still walk much of the old Monkland Canal from AIRDRIE west to Easterhouse before the M8 obliterates it.
You mean the BLACKHILL incline. Was one of only two double stairway locks in the UK & also had a railway from the lowest basin to the graving dock at the top of the hill.
Keep wandering Ed, and keep wondering.
So much to wonder about, and so little time to do it.
I love industrial history and would give my life to own a time machine for a month starting with my home town of Greenock where I remember in 1974 the last time the miles of shipyards had a ship being built on every slipway. The chemical plant at Pinkston/St Rollox was the largest in the world and every time you enter the Queen Street tunnel by train you get a smell of rotten eggs from the contaminated carcinogenic land that they obviously then built thousands of council houses on 🤦♂Under Castle Street at the junction of Baird Street/Royston Road there's an interesting section of the Monklands canal still their minus the water.
Cheers Douglas. As a child, I shared my wondering between wondering what was out there in space, and how I too might travel back in time.
@@EdExploresScotland 👍👍
I have an interest in walking from Bath to London along the Kennet and Avon canals. Have you done anything about this walk? I know it is not in Scotland, but it would be helpful.
I'm afraid I know nothing about that walk, but a quick search online will bring up any number of bits of info. The following link, for example, gives some info:
www.ramblesandbrambles.co.uk/kennet--avon-canal-walk.html
@@EdExploresScotland thank you so much!
The metal on the new bridge is the metal that was salvaged from the cooling tower of pinkston electric
What ? the bridge was built nearly 40 years after demolition?
Did I miss the pie or is he aff his scragg?
It's hard to eat when there's so much wondering to be done.
Ed,the bridge was rusty when it put up
I know John. I was just kidding. Old guy humour.
@@EdExploresScotland Just checking Ed lol