Faslane #3 - Metal Industries: shipbreaking

Looking north along the deepwater wharf at 'Military Port No. 1', Faslane. Photo credit - Media Storehouse

Following on from my last post, the military ports at Faslane and Cairnryan were never intended to be permanent, only to last for the duration of the War. But even though elements of their construction had deliberately been skimped for that reason and in the interests of getting them up and running in as short a time as possible, nobody could quite imagine just dismantling the ports and returning their sites to nature: instead, the question was what to do with them now that peace had returned? 

Faslane's future was determined in August 1946 when it was announced that it was to be leased for 30 years, at a rent of £12,500 a year, to a company called Metal Industries Ltd for shipbreaking. This company was founded by three Scotsmen in 1922 and was originally called Alloa Shipbreaking Company Ltd but, having been refused space by the town after which it was named, it traded from Charlestown and Rosyth on the Firth of Forth. (Looking at Charlestown today - here - it's hard to imagine shipbreaking having been done there but it was, until 1963). 

Alloa Shipbreaking changed its name to Metal Industries in 1929 and a significant part of its work was breaking up the ships of the German Imperial Navy which had been scuttled in Scapa Flow (in Orkney) after World War 1. A firm called Cox & Danks bought the sunken hulks from the Admiralty (a battleship cost £1,000-£2,000 but you could get a destroyer for £250: it led to the eponymous Ernest Cox gaining the soubriquet 'The Man Who Bought a Navy' in the title of his biography), raised them and delivered them to the Forth where Metal Industries (MI) bought the ships, broke them up and sold the scrap metal. MI took over Cox & Danks in 1933.

The German battle cruiser Hindenburg sitting on the seabed in Scapa Flow. She was raised and broken up by Metal Industries at Rosyth in 1930, the largest ship ever to be salvaged.

The acquisition of the former military port at Faslane was to be an expansion of MI's business employing 1,500 new employees but there was still unfinished business at Scapa Flow. 

The last battle cruiser to be salvaged, the 690 feet long SMS Derfflinger (for comparison, the Titanic was 880 feet long and the QE2 963 feet) was raised in the summer of 1939 but the outbreak of World War 2 that September prevented anything further being done with her due to the Admiralty requisitioning MI's premises at Rosyth. So she floated at anchor in Scapa Flow, upside down, for the duration of the War: in fact, she spent longer afloat upside down (7 years) than she ever did the right way up (6 years). Then, in September 1946, she was towed, still upside down, down the west coast, through the Minches and round the Mull of Kintyre, to MI's new premises at Faslane. The tow was carried out by five tugs and took five days going at an average speed of about 3 knots (3.5 mph). As well as the tug boat crews, fourteen men (plus, the newspapers of the day reported, a collie dog called Roy and a cat called Corky) remained on board the Derfflinger, living in the huts erected on her flat, upward facing bottom to house the equipment supplying the compressed air pumped into her hull to keep her afloat.     

On arrival at the Tail of the Bank, between Greenock and Helensburgh, the Derfflinger, still upside down, was transferred onto a floating drydock which MI had also just acquired as part of their expansion on the Clyde: it had been used for the repair of shipping during the War and for the last few years had been moored off Rosneath Point. This operation was necessary because the inverted ship drew more than the depth of water over the bar at the entrance to the Gareloch at the Rhu Narrows whereas the drydock drew less and could cross the bar.

The bar at the entrance to the Gareloch as seen on an Admiralty Chart (when Rhu was still spelt 'Row'). See the full chart here

Now as I understand it, a floating drydock works by being partially submerged, the ship is floated into it, then the drydock is raised by having air pumped back into its flotation chambers and the ship is lifted out the water with it. I can see how that works with a ship the right way up so it comes to rest on its keel but how on earth do you chock an upside down one up so that the superstructure doesn't crumple under the weight of the hull as the dock dries out? And as if that wasn't difficult enough, the drydock couldn't be sunk far enough to get the Derfflinger into it so she had to be given added buoyancy to float her higher in the water. All in all, it took over a month to get her into the drydock before it could be towed up to Faslane: below is the arrival at the deep water wharf (and there are more pictures here: scroll to the bottom).

(A footnote about the Derfflinger is that one of her two ship's bells hangs outside the church on Eriskay (picture). But I don't know how it got there - I'm wondering if a local rowed out as she was being towed past the island and asked for a souvenir? The other bell was donated to the West German Navy in 1965.) 

In fact, the Derfflinger wasn't the first ship to arrive for scrapping at MI's new facilities: she had been preceded by a couple of months by a British battleship, HMS Iron Duke (620 feet long), which had also been towed to Faslane from Scapa Flow (although upright and able to pass the Rhu Narrows into the Gareloch afloat). She had been decommissioned as a battleship in 1931 and at the beginning of WW2 was stationed at Scapa Flow as an anti-aircraft platform. But she was damaged in an attack by German bombers in October 1939 and beached for the rest of the War (still acting as an a/a platform) until MI refloated and towed her south to Faslane for scrapping in August 1946. Much was made in the press at the time of the fact that the Iron Duke and the Derfflinger had both fought on opposite sides at the naval Battle of Jutland in 1916 during WW1 but had ended up being scrapped beside each other in the same port. (In December 1948, after she'd been cut down to the waterline, the remains of the Iron Duke were moved to Port Glasgow for final demolition there.)

The Iron Duke being towed into the Gareloch in August 1946: British Newspaper Archive

There is a series of three very good articles about MI's operations at Faslane, the biggest shipbreaking facility in Britain, which you can read here, here and here so I'll give just a few highlights: first, amongst the notable ships scrapped at Faslane was the 1914 Cunarder Aquitania (900 feet) in 1950.

The Aquitania passing the Rhu Narrows on her way to Faslane for breaking in February 1950 - Illustrated London News via The British Newspaper Archive

Scenes from the 1958 film about the sinking of the Titanic A Night to Remember (starring Kenneth More as Second Officer Lightoller) were filmed aboard the 1925 liner RMS Asturias while she was being scrapped at Faslane: apparently the port side of the ship had already been demolished so scenes on that side of the Titanic had to be filmed on the starboard side of the Asturias and reversed with a mirror!

The Asturias seen over the bow of HMS Anson both being scrapped at Faslane in 1958 - The Sphere via The British Newspaper Archive

Another notable scrapping at Faslane was HMS Vanguard (814 feet long). Ordered during the War but not commissioned until 1946, she was Britain's largest, fastest but also last battleship. Almost obsolete as soon as she was launched in the era of submarines and aircraft carriers, she was placed in reserve in 1955 and sold for scrapping in 1960: there's an excellent quality colour video on YouTube about her tow from Portsmouth and demolition at Faslane here. 

Naval ratings watching the barrel of one of HMS Vanguard's main guns being cut off in a still from the video linked to above. Note in the background Belmore House, one of the lochside mansions which had its ambience rather spoilt by the creation of the military port during the War. It served as Metal Industries' offices at Faslane

Naval ratings depart the Vanguard at Faslane in another still from the video

A final factoid from the Helensburgh Advertiser articles I enjoyed was that Metal Industries had a sale room for the sale of furnishings removed from the ships: an escritoire from the Aquitania would fetch a pretty penny on Antiques Roadshow nowadays, I'd imagine!

1950s were the heyday of shipbreaking and MI's business suffered a bit of a downturn in the early 60s due to depressed demand for scrap metal. They closed their yards at Rosyth and Charlestown on the Forth in 1963 and with the Admiralty sniffing round Faslane looking for a suitable place to station their Polaris submarines, there was probably a deal to be done. We'll come to that in the next episode.

Faslane #2 - Military Port No. 1

Photo credit Wikipedia

In 1940, the Port of London was being pounded by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz. The port which handled almost half of Britain's trade was soon down to only 25% of its operating capacity. Slightly less vulnerable ports on the west coast (Liverpool, Glasgow) managed to relieve some of the pressure but we'd be horribly vulnerable if they came under the same sort of attack as London. 

At the height of the Blitz in September 1940, an operation described as the partial removal of the Port of London to the Clyde was mounted: the so called 'Clyde Anchorages Emergency Port' involved 500 dockers and their families being sent north along with cranes, trucks and 300 barges (which due to the risks of moving them by sea had to be sent by road!) to unload cargo ships anchored off Gourock. But as useful as this was (read more about it here), what was also urgently required was more wharfage for ships to get alongside; new ports, in other words.

Ships Lying in the Clyde Anchorage Emergency Port by A J W Burgess - picture credit Art.Salon

An added problem was increased shipment of military material for which commercial ports were not ideally suited. The solution devised, therefore, was the construction of two new military ports to allow the existing ports to concentrate on commercial traffic. A committee was appointed to look for suitable sites on the west coast of Scotland ticking the following boxes: separate sites from existing ports (due to the difficulties of integrating military and civilian labour, apparently, rather than spreading eggs amongst different baskets); deep water for the largest of ocean going ships and offshore anchorage for ditto awaiting berths; railway access was a given but 'special regard' was also to be had to road access - an interesting reflection of how, in the 1940s, road transport was on the point of overtaking rail in importance. There also needed to be space for extensive railway sidings and marshalling yards; and finally, a place where all that could be achieved in the shortest possible time. Two sites were eventually chosen: Cairnryan near Stranraer on Loch Ryan and Faslane Bay on the Gareloch. 

Ordnance Survey 6 inch map, 1860

Being now so completely overwhelmed by the naval base, it's hard to imagine what Faslane Bay must have looked like in its 'virgin' state before the War. Here's an account of it in the 1890s from a book called Annals of Garelochside by W. C. Maughan (here). In the course of a walk down the east side of the loch from Garelochhead:-

Faslane Bay is soon reached, and here the sides of the loch are well wooded, with grassy slopes leading up to the heather hills above, and handsome villas are seen gleaming amidst their surrounding plantations. Faslane House is a little way back from the middle of the bay, the former residence of the MacAulays [of Ardencaple] … . A good way down from the house, near the shore, there stands the old oak tree, under whose boughs, according to tradition, the crowing of a cock presaged the death of a MacAulay. The name of the spot Cnoch-na-Cullah, or "Knoll of the Cock" seems appropriate to the legend. An irregular pile Faslane [House] is, the front having been built 1863, the portion behind about 1745, and a still older small structure in the rear. There is a rolling stream, with many a dark eddying pool, and foaming cascade, which runs past the house into the peaceful bay. In former years the Colquhouns of Luss lived at Faslane, for a short time in summer, as a sort of marine residence, occupying the older part of the mansion. … Crossing the burn at the back of Faslane House, the old burying place, round the picturesque ruins of the ancient chapel, is seen on the slope of the field, a sequestered and beautiful spot, with oak and ash trees throwing their shade over the mouldering walls, all mantled with wallflower and creepers, and the upper end of the enclosure is rank with long grass. An ash tree of some size has long grown within the crumbling walls, and spread its great boughs over the ruins, while the roofless structure offers free entrance to wintry gales and summer zephyrs alike, with rushing wailing sound.

Returning to Faslane Bay, the house known as Belmore appears in the midst of a flourishing plantation, near the road. ... [It] was acquired in 1856 by Mr, M'Donald, who remodelled the mansion, giving it the handsome appearance which it now has. In those days the loch side presented a wild scene of nature — whins, sloes, wild roses, and the indigenous copse woods and shrubs of the district, abounded on the hillside, with a few older trees and belts of plantations on the farms.

Looking north towards Faslane Bay. This spot is covered by the south end of the naval base today

Further north almost at the head of the bay. This is all now covered by the naval base. Photo by kind permission of Graeme Lappin

North end of Faslane Bay in 1894 at the north end of what's now the naval base. These houses are all gone. Image courtesy of University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums

Faslane Farmhouse just visible through the trees in 1894. At first sight, it appears to be roofless but I don't think it is. Image courtesy of University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums Another picture of the house here

Into this rural idyll, the Second World War and its demand for military ports interrupted very rudely indeed. None of the sites the committee had surveyed ticked all the boxes and compromises had had to be made. Faslane was lacking in flat ground for the railway sidings and marshalling yards so when work began in December 1940 this had to be created by levelling the hillside behind the bay and dumping the excavated material in the sea to reclaim land - thus was Faslane Farmhouse swept away.

You can read detailed accounts of the technical engineering aspects of the construction of the military ports here and here (scroll to page 14) but here are some of the highlights of Faslane or 'Military Port No. 1' as it became known. 

It was built by a squad of about 2,000 soldiers of the Royal Engineers working 24/7 and housed at the nearby Shandon Hydro Hotel, not just in the hotel itself but also in Nissen Huts in its grounds: when the port first started to be used in May 1942 (although it wasn't yet complete at that time), the onsite labour force grew to 4,000 necessitating additional camps.

1852 Admiralty Chart - National Libraries of Scotland

Although the Gare Loch is deep, it's relatively shallow at its entrance between Rhu Point and Rosneath so it was dredged to 30 feet deep over a width of 400 feet: the dredged material was also used for the land reclamation to create the railway sidings. On that subject, the West Highland Railway to Fort William passed Faslane Bay but at about 200 feet above sea level so a branch line was built from a point about 2.75 miles south to descend gently to the port. 

In connection with laying the branch line, a gnarled old tree near the shore had to be removed. The Commanding Officer of the works was approached by an elderly farmer who warned him that local tradition had it that felling the tree would presage three deaths - I wonder if this was a variant on the legend narrated in Annals of Garelochside quoted above that a cock crowing under a certain old oak tree by the shore of Faslane Bay presaged the death of a MacAulay? Anyhow, the tree was felled and the CO recorded that an officer on the work mysteriously died shortly thereafter. So did his replacement. The next replacement was spared by being sent to the work at Cairnryan, however - and none of these people was called MacAulay!

Incidentally, the first officer who died allegedly due to felling that tree was Sir Keith Nuttall of the engineering firm which still exists today called BAM Nuttall. And while we're on household names involved in the military port at Faslane, it was designed by Sir William Halcrow of the firm of consulting engineers latterly known as Halcrow Group.

In the course of driving piles for the wharves, one pile encountered an obstruction under the seabed. Investigation revealed this to be the wreck of a sailing ship called the Falcon carrying coal from Glasgow which had gone on fire at this spot in 1876. The wreck had to be dug out but the coal salvaged was able to be used to power the shunting locomotives at the port.

When it was completed in December 1942, two years after work started, Military Port No. 1, boasted a wharf with six berths with 30 feet depth at low tide for ocean going ships of up to 500 feet long. North of that was a shallower (9 feet) wharf for lighters loading ships at anchor in the bay. Both wharves were equipped with cranes, mostly brought (by road dismantled) from other ports put out of action by the enemy. Some came from the Port of London and Southampton Docks, the latter of which had been closed and was being decommissioned to deny it to the Germans in the event of the anticipated invasion: its cranes were on the point of being destroyed when it was realised they could be used at the military ports. 

There were also two 'M.T. Ferry Berths'. M.T. in this context stands for Mechanical Transport and seems to have been the military term for anything with an internal combustion engine: I think the expression was coined when this was a relative novelty compared with the hitherto normal modes of transport, namely, steam and horse. All we're told about these berths is that 'M.T.' could be taken from them on pontoons to the side of a ship for loading. Taking lorries to Allied invasions overseas was very much something envisaged for the military ports so maybe these 'M.T. Ferry Berths' were to allow them to be loaded without getting in the way of the railway wagons etc. on the wharves themselves. Finally, there was a berth for a 150 ton floating crane which had, despite the risks, been towed round from Southampton. And although the gnarled oak tree and Faslane House didn't survive the construction of the military port, the house called Belmore mentioned in the quote from Annals of Garelochside did -  it was the CO's HQ during construction and then became the port offices once it was in commission.

Looking south along the deep water wharf: photo credit Media Storehouse

You can see the 'before and after' of Military Port No. 1 at Faslane using the National Libraries of Scotland's Geo-referenced Map Viewer. Use the "Change transparency of overlay" slider at bottom left (highlighted in red on the image below) to reveal the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map of the bay before the military port was built. Then go to the 'Background map' dialogue box at the top (ditto), select 'ESRI/OSM/LIDAR' in the top dropdown menu and select 'ESRI World Imagery' (or Google Satellite) in the lower one and you can reveal what it looks like today with the naval base there now.

In use, the military ports - which were operated as well as constructed by the military - proved invaluable in the dispatch of material for the invasion of North Africa in October 1942 (even though they hadn't been fully completed by then) and then the D-Day Landings in June 1944. The ports also assisted the latter indirectly in that skills acquired in their construction were transferred to the conception of the portable Mulberry Harbours (the CO at the construction of Faslane, Brigadier Sir Bruce White, was instrumental in their design) and the recovery of French ports destroyed by the retreating Germans. 

Britain itself not being a theatre of war during WW2 after the threat of invasion in 1940 had receded, it was really for the export of military materials in connection with operations such as the invasions of Africa and Europe, rather than imports, that the military ports were conceived. This was reflected in elements of the design: for example the branch line down to Faslane was at a slightly steeper gradient than was normal, it being assumed that trains climbing it would normally be hauling empty wagons. 

It's important to understand as well that the military ports weren't naval bases as Faslane is today. That said, they were occasionally visited by Royal Ships, for example the battleship HMS Malaya took advantage of the 150 ton floating crane to have her 90 ton guns changed.

And it's a signal fact that neither of the military ports was ever attacked by the Luftwaffe. Obviously, the secret of their construction never got out and back to Berlin!

The lighterage wharf looking north: photo credit Media Storehouse

Faslane #1 - Earls, clans and cattle breeders

For anyone who doesn't know, Faslane is the name of the naval base which hosts the Royal Navy's submarine fleet, including the four that carry the UK's nuclear deterrent Trident missiles. Its correct title is HMNB (His Majesty's Naval Base) Clyde but it's generally known simply as Faslane after the name of the bay it stands on on the Gare Loch off the Firth of Clyde on the west coast of Scotland. Before delving into the story of the base itself, though, I wanted to see what I could find out about the history of Faslane before it was developed by the Navy in the 1960s.

'The five pound land of Faslane' - so called after the old Scottish habit of identifying land by its taxable value (like a medieval rateable value or Council Tax band) - was a part of the Earldom of Lennox which included the whole of Dumbartonshire plus a chunk of western Stirlingshire as outlined (approximately) on the map above. 

Some time in the first quarter of the 13th century, Donald, the 3rd Earl of Lennox, granted Faslane to his brother, Aulay, to hold as a fief under the earls as feudal superiors. Aulay's descendants adopted the name 'de Faslane'. There was also a castle at Faslane where the 4th Earl entertained William Wallace in 1297 according to Blind Harry (but not anyone else. And BH was about as reliable on Wallace's career in the 15th century as Braveheart was in the 20th.) There's nothing left to see of the castle now as the West Highland Railway to Fort William runs over its site.

Around 1350, Aulay's great-great grandson, Walter de Faslane, married the heiress to the Earldom. Thus did subsequent generations of the Faslane family became the Earls of Lennox. In the 1460s, the earldom passed by the marriage of another heiress to the Stewarts of Darnley. The most famous member of that family was Lord Darnley, son of the 12th Earl of Lennox and ill-fated husband of Mary Queen of Scots: he was baptised in Faslane Chapel. Fragmentary ruins of the chapel (pictures) remain in a cemetery just outside the perimeter of the naval base.

The gates of Faslane Cemetery - the ruins of the chapel are just visible in the shadows above the middle gatepost: Google Streetview

The Earls of Lennox parcelled most of the Earldom out amongst their feudal vassals. Prominent amongst these were the Colquhouns (who I wrote about here and pronounced "Cuh-HOON" for anyone who doesn't know). Beginning at the end of the 15th century, and spreading out from their core territories around Luss on the west shore of Loch Lomond and east of Dumbarton on the north bank of the Clyde, the Colquhouns progressively acquired more fiefs in the west of the Earldom, both directly from the Earls and by purchase from existing vassals. In 1653, Sir John Colquhoun, 19th of Luss, acquired Faslane from the Duke of Lennox (the 15th Earl had been promoted in 1581) along with other lands on both sides of the Gareloch, in Glen Fruin and around Balloch. (Prior to this, Faslane had passed through various owners, including Maxwells and Campbells.) 

In 1693, Colquhoun of Luss sub-feued (granted on perpetual lease) Faslane to Archibald MacAulay of Ardencaple (at Helensburgh) for an annual feuduty (ground rent) of £40 Scots (£3.33 Sterling: about £500 in today's money). The MacAulays had briefly held Faslane in the early 16th century but what, if any, relationship they bore to the Aulay who originally acquired Faslane from his brother, the 3rd Earl of Lennox, in the 13th century, I've not been able to discover (leading me to conclude there's no connection or else we'd know about it). Anyway, Luss bought the feu of Faslane back from Ardencaple in 1751. By the end of the 18th century, the Colquhouns owned nearly all the land along the coast from Helensburgh (a town established by Sir James Colquhoun of Luss in the 1780s and named after his wife) to Arrochar (except the Rosneath peninsula which mostly belonged to the Duke of Argyll).

A final factoid about the Earldom of Lennox before we leave it is that, in 1702, the 7th Duke (an illegitimate son of King Charles II) sold it. The purchaser was James Graham, 4th Marquess of Montrose, pictured above being played by John Hurt in the 1995 film Rob Roy with Liam Neeson in the title role. It was just the land and feudal superiorities that were sold, you can't sell a title itself, but nevertheless the consequence was that the Colquhouns ended up paying their feudal dues for Faslane to the Grahams of Montrose instead of the Lennox Stewarts. The current Duke of Lennox - who is 26 generations in descent from the 13th century Aulay of Faslane and is simultaneously also the Duke of Richmond and the Duke of Gordon - doesn't own a square inch in Scotland although he does own Goodwood Racecourse and surrounding 12,000 acres in Sussex.

His Grace, the Duke of Richmond, Gordon & Lennox doing what toffs do - let their dogs on the furniture. Photo credit: The Tatler

If the name Faslane is now synonymous with nuclear submarines, in the 19th and first half of the 20th century it was associated with something rather more bucolic and peaceable: cattle breeding. 

Faslane Farm was tenanted under the Colquhouns of Luss as landlord by four generations of a family of MacFarlanes who were renowned cattle breeders. The earliest member of this family I've found record of was the splendidly named Parlan MacFarlane who was tenant of Faslane in 1807: he won second prize for best bull in Dumbartonshire west of the River Leven that year. (I hadn't realised until today that Parlan is the Gaelic equivalent of Bartholomew. MacFarlane is therefore 'son of Bartholomew' because the genetive (possessive) case in Gaelic puts an h after an initial consonant.) 

Parlan was the second generation of his family in Faslane Farm. The first also owned property in nearby Glen Fruin and might have been the George MacFarlane described as a cattle dealer who, in 1751, bought the feu of Faslane from MacAulay of Ardencaple and immediately sold it on to Colquhoun of Luss. I can't be sure of that, though, because MacFarlane is a very common name in north west Dumbartonshire - but it wouldn't be the first time a prosperous tenant had bailed his impecunious landlord out. 

Parlan MacFarlane was succeeded as tenant of Faslane by his son John in the middle of the 19th century. A report of his death in 1900 at the age of 92 in the Dundee Evening Telegraph recorded that:

As a sheep farmer and breeder of cattle Mr Macfarlan [sic] had a wide reputation. He was a judge at the first Paris Exhibition in 1851, and has frequently acted in the same capacity at the Highland Society and other shows. A man of sound judgement, prudence and integrity, he was often employed as a valuator of sheep and land. In local affairs he took a deep and intelligent interest. He was a member of the first School Board, and in the early days of Parochial Boards he proved himself a useful representative. Mr Macfarlan was in many respects a remarkable man and was most deservedly esteemed throughout the County of Dumbarton.    

Highland cattle on the east side of Loch Lomond. The island top right is Inchmurrin, the castle on which was the "chief messuage" - the legal headquarters - of the Earldom of Lennox

John MacFarlane was in turn succeeded as tenant of Faslane by his son, another Parlan. He died in 1948 by which time references to the farm have died out, no doubt because Faslane was overtaken by a new destiny during World War Two. I'll come to that in the next post but finish this one with a thought about the clans of Lennox my researches into the history of Faslane provoked.  

The progenitor of Clan MacFarlane was Gilchrist, also a son of Alwyn, 2nd Earl of Lennox and so a brother of the first Aulay of Faslane who lived in the early 13th century. The eponymous Parlan was Gilchrist's great-grandson. The MacFarlane chiefs owned the huge, but mountainous and sparsely populated, estate of Arrochar which occupied virtually the whole of the Earldom of Lennox west of Loch Lomond north of Glen Douglas: in the 16th century, the estate was known as 'Arrochar-Makgilchrist' in accordance with the peculiarly Lennox habit of adding to the name of a place the name of the family who owned it. The MacFarlanes held the estate as a feudal fief under the superiority of their cousins, the Earls of Lennox (post 1702, the Duke of Montrose), until 1785 when the last chief, John, sold it. The ever acquisitive Colquhouns of Luss subsequently bought Arrochar in 1821. 

Now we're always being told that clanship and feudalism are inimical to each other. Yet in the Lennox, the clans - MacFarlanes, MacAulays and Colquhouns - fitted seamlessly into the feudal system: we even find one clan (the MacAulays) becoming feudal vassals of another (Colquhouns) at Faslane in 1693. In truth, clans and feudalism co-existed perfectly comfortably. As well as that 'vertical' integration, we also find that MacFarlanes have 'leaked out', as it were, of Arrochar which they owned and are living as tenants on the estates of other neighbouring clans (Colquhouns and possibly MacAulays at Faslane and the Colquhouns had other MacFarlane tenants). It's all not nearly as clear cut as the conventional view of clans and the neat coloured blocks of territory on the clan map imply.

Nuclear submarines next time.

The Shandon Hydro

A "colossal pile with its minarets pointing to the sky", as it was once described (here), the building pictured above was demolished in 1960. Looking like nothing so much as the bastard offspring of Balmoral Castle and the Brighton Pavillion it was, in fact, the Shandon Hydro Hotel which stood on the east side of the Gareloch between Rhu and Garelochhead.

Though latterly a hotel, it was originally built in 1852 as the home of Robert Napier, the marine steam engine and shipbuilding magnate. Set in 60 acres of grounds, West Shandon, as Napier called it, was designed by the same architect as designed the Wallace Monument at Stirling and boasted a clock tower (the lower tower to the right), a sculpture gallery and a 165' long conservatory. Not everyone was impressed, though: Professor Kerr, author of The Gentleman's House; or, How to Plan English Residences From the Parsonage to the Palace (here), commented rather sniffily:-

The entrance-hall is much too small, unless we include with it the interior vestibule, which again, if large enough, becomes awkward in form. ... The dining-room must be considered out of rule except as a sitting-room; the character of form is not that of an eating-room at all; ... The offices [meaning the stables etc.] generally are very confined, and not instructive. The same must be said of the museums, picture-gallery and billiard-room in their relations to each other and to other apartments [i.e. rooms].

Ooh! How big are the museums in your house, Professor?

Professor Kerr's criticisms didn't prevent Robert Napier's trustees selling West Shandon after he died in 1876 for £37,500 - about £3.5 million in today's money. The purchaser was the Shandon Hydropathic Company who spent a further £17,000 (£1.6m today) installing Turkish and Russian Vapour baths, fresh and salt water spray and plunge baths and sea water swimming ponds. The conservatory was extended to 350' and a new wing was added (to the right of the clock tower in the pictures: photo pre-extension here and plans here) with 88 bedrooms bringing the total up to 132. In the grounds were tennis courts and a nine hole golf course and a pier was arranged 700 metres north in order that guests might arrive by the steamers of the North British Railway (which at that time terminated at Helensburgh, 5 miles away: when the railway was extended past the hotel on the way to Fort William in 1894, the new Shandon Station was a convenient 5 minute walk away.) If it all seems a bit extravagant, such was the fad for hydros at the time that, when the Shandon Hydropathic Company went public - at its IPO, as we'd say now - after the hotel opened in 1877, the shares were oversubscribed by about a third (between 9 and 10,000 applications for the 7,000 shares offered).  

The Shandon Hydropathic was requisitioned by the Admiralty in 1918 for the HQ of a submarine research facility on the Gareloch: model submarines were tested in the hotel's swimming pools. When this closed in 1921, the hotel was sold to a new company the managing director of which was Glasgow hotelier Robert Mitchell: he also had the Imperial Hotel at the top of Buchanan Street and the Kenilworth Hotel at the corner of Argyle and Queen Streets.  (Another director was the MD of The West of Scotland Laundry: like the shipping company that bought the quarries I wrote about here, was this another case of securing your trade by taking a stake in your biggest customer?) The price paid to the Admiralty plus the cost of various improvements totalled around £45,000 (about £2m today and contrast with the £54.5k spent in 1877) and subscribers for £100 or more of shares were promised a 10% discount on the price of stays at the revamped hotel which reopened in July 1922.

An article in The Sphere magazine in 1927 gushed about the facilities on offer at the Shandon Hydro, not least the two gymnasia, one for each sex. You had to be careful about that sort of thing in these days and the absence of single sex swimming pools at the hotel got a Mr Henderson, who lived in a pukkah house in Balloch, into bother in 1933 when his wife sued him for divorce on the basis of his alleged adultery with their neighbour, Mrs Hamilton, who lived in an even more pukkah house two miles up the road on the edge of Loch Lomond. Amongst the episodes averred by Mrs Henderson to establish her husband's infidelity was "an indelicate method of holding" Mrs Hamilton when teaching her to swim in the pool at the Shandon Hydro. The judge was unable to decide on the evidence led whether Mr Henderson had been supporting her by the chin or the body but remarked:

When once it was considered correct for men and women to bathe together, one must expect the stronger sex to help the weaker in their efforts to swim.      

The hotel was also a popular conference venue in the 1930s. These included get togethers of such diverse groups as the Scottish National Party in 1936 (it had only been formed in 1934), the Junior Imperialist Union in 1935 and the National Socialist Organisation (I think 'National Socialist' meant something different in Britain from what it meant in Germany at the time!) and the British and Scottish Esperanto Associations in 1938.

Although the hotel technically belonged to the Shandon Hydro Hotel Co. Ltd, its managing director Robert Mitchell was the licensee and generally regarded as the owner. In May 1936, he offered it for sale but died the same month. The following month his estate was declared bankrupt and I can't help wondering if the sale, the death and the bankruptcy in quick succession were linked? (In fact, the hotel had been sold briefly in 1930 to a Mrs Rathie, previously of the Callander Hydro, but Robert Mitchell seems to have been back in control in 1932.) Anyhow, the new owner from 1937, of both the Shandon Hotel and the late Mr Mitchell's Imperial Hotel in Glasgow, was Donald McLachlan but he'd had little time to consolidate his new acquisitions before the Shandon was requisitioned again at the start of the Second World War. It was used for the accommodation of army units in hutments in its grounds (and with the officers in the hotel itself, I'm guessing). Latterly it was occupied by Polish soldiers. They didn't finally leave until September 1947 and it wasn't until May 1951 that the hotel re-opened, still owned by Mr McLachlan (strictly his company called Shandon Hotel (1937) Ltd).

Advert in The Scotsman via The British Newspaper Archive

The advert above was published on Friday 13 April 1951 and the bad luck thereby presaged seems to have come to pass for, despite the two years of reconstruction and redecoration invested in it, prosperity didn't return to the Shandon Hydro after the War. 

Donald McLachlan died in 1954 of a heart attack while at the helm of his racing yacht on the Clyde. His hotels were inherited by his 25 year old son, Laughton. When his wedding was reported in the Daily Record in 1957 under the headline "Hotel King Weds Girl, 19, In Secret" he was described as 20 stone and Scotland's youngest millionaire. 

In November 1955, the year after Laughton McLachlan inherited the Shandon Hydro, the Daily Record ran a story a under the headline "The rich have gone ...":

Gone are the gay parties, the wealthy American tourists and the rich Scotsmen. The ballroom is silent. The swimming pools are empty. The golf course and tennis courts are deserted. The cocktail bars are closed. Shandon Hydro has fallen on hard times.

But Laughton had a plan: letting the rooms to people on a budget to live there. The prices ranged from 30 shillings (£1.50) a week for a room at the back with a shilling electric slot meter and no phone, through £2:2s (£2.10) a week for a room with burgundy rugs and a loch view up to £4:4s (£4.20) for an 'enormous' bedroom with adjoining sitting room and private bath. Amongst the residents the Record reporter spoke to was Macfie Stewart, 68 (picture below). A retired War Department clerk who'd also seen a bit of life in California and Toronto, he was now living solely on his pension and told the reporter he had to cut down on his food sometimes. He loved the Shandon deal where the food was "very cheap to suit people with a meagre income": breakfast was 1s:10d (£0.09), three course lunch 2s:9d (£0.14) and high tea 1s:3d (£0.06), all dished up at a 'serve-yourself bar' in the dining room: what would Professor Kerr have said? 

Presumably the chef de cuisine referred to in the advert (above) had been dispensed with but Miss Ellis, the manageress since the hotel had re-opened after the War in 1951, was still on station and taking the changes cheerfully: she said she'd had a dozen enquiries that morning, mostly pensioners but including two local workers and a young couple had stayed for a fortnight pending moving into a house in Helensburgh. Another resident was 'frail and entirely' widow, Mrs Bryson. She'd been living in a room (!) in Glasgow, then a commercial hotel until that became too dear even though they'd reduced their price for her: she believed her rheumatism had been much better since coming to Shandon.

Daily Record 2 November 1955 via The British Newspaper Archive

But the prices were obviously too cheap because the following year, 1956, Laughton McLachlan put the Shandon Hydro up for sale by auction. Eminently suitable as a hotel, hospital, hostel, convalescent home, school, research station, caravan or camping ground the auctioneer's advert claimed but it ended up being bought by a demolition firm for £10,500 for the slates, woodwork and fittings etc. - architectural salvage, we'd call that nowadays. Meanwhile, the grounds were converted into a caravan park and that was offered for sale the following year, 1957, at £5,500. The roofless shell of the stripped hotel was blown up by the Navy in 1960.

The Scotsman, 13 April 1960 via The British Newspaper Archive

A postscript on Laughton McLachlan is worth a paragraph. As well as the Imperial Hotel, he was also the owner of Glasgow's George Hotel (and see also here) on Buchanan Street and the Adelphi Hotel on what later became 'Boots Corner' on Argyle Street. In 1957, around the time he was disposing of Shandon, McLachlan acquired a controlling interest in the Eglinton Hotels chain for £1.25 million, at the time Scotland's biggest ever hotel purchase. Amongst the Eglinton portfolio were Edinburgh's George Hotel and Cafe Royal. In 1959, two of its directors requested a Board of Trade enquiry into the company's affairs after its profits mysteriously collapsed from £16,000 to a loss of £31,000 in the wake of the McLachlan takeover. The suspicion was that he was siphoning off from Eglinton to prop up his Glasgow hotels - which would be fine if he owned Eglinton outright but not when there were minority shareholders with no interest in the Glasgow operation but to whom he owed a duty of care. The BoT inspectors concluded there was a "grave suspicion that funds of the Eglinton company were dishonestly appropriated and ... consider that the circumstances are such as to merit a police enquiry." No charges were brought in the end but Eglinton sued McLachlan for £48,000 (about £875k in today's values) for "acting without due regard for the rights of shareholders". That was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. By then also the owner of a Glasgow taxi cab firm, Laughton McLachlan died in 1965 when the helicopter he was piloting crashed: the reports of that described him as the "mystery Scots businessman" with a reputation for being a "colourful person". He sounds like a character in an episode of Taggart.

All that remains of the Shandon Hydro today is the gate lodge:

Google Streetview

... and part of the seafront garden wall and balustrades:-

Google Streetview

And here's what's on the site today:-

Google Streetview

That's taken from almost exactly the same position as the various views of the hotel above. It looks like a prison but it's actually accommodation blocks of Faslane, or His Majesty's Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde to give it its Sunday name. Compare the two photos below both taken from about the same angle:-

Google Streetview

In a sense, one architectural monstrosity has been replaced with another.

Researching the Shandon Hydro brought me to a fork in the road of things which impact (or used to impact) on the Kyles and Western Isles but which I don't know as much as I should and therefore ought to look into: left for Faslane or right for west coast hydros generally? Eventually I took the left fork and Faslane it is. Coming soon ...