James Watt Dock

I took my car in for a service this morning. Walking back into Greenock I stopped to take a few shots of the wonderful James Watt Dock.

The James Watt Dock opened in 1886 and was created to enable Greenock to compete with Glasgow, with the aim of attracting transatlantic shipping traffic and establishing Greenock as, “one of the greatest and best equipped British seaports”.

At the time it was believed to be the only dock on the Clyde where vessels of large tonnage could be kept afloat at all states of tide. It was thought that such a facility would allow Greenock to benefit from the larger ships which were being used for trade and passenger traffic that were constrained in their draft to navigate the upper reaches of the Clyde at anything below high tide.

For a period the dock allowed Greenock to expand and with industries such as sugar refining and shipbuilding, the boom in trade fuelled significant development leading to the growth of the town.

The large fitting out crane or Titan Cantilever Crane visible as you approach the dock was built in 1917 by Sir William Arrol & Co.

The 150 ton structure is a Category A listed structure and is one of only 4 left in Scotland (40 were built by Arrol & Co and sent all around the world).