The archive contains only articles from the on-line pages
|
World heritage site |
The Clyde is Scotland’s third long-est river, flowing well over 100 miles from its headwaters in the Lowther Hills to the tail of the bank at Greenock.
For most of its length it is fairly placid but as it completes a long winding detour round Tinto Hill the river turns abruptly north and plunges through a steep sided gorge.
In little more than a mile it cascades 50 metres over Bonnington, Cora and Dundaff Linns. The Falls of Clyde was a popular beauty spot and in 1784 it was this short stretch of the river that interested David Dale and Robert Arkwright.
Dale was a prosperous Glasgow banker and textile merchant while in 1769 Arkwright had patented the water frame that was revolutionising the cotton industry in England. Scotland had a well-established and profitable linen industry but textile barons were turning their attention to the expanding cotton business. A reliable, fast flowing water supply was essential and in this regard the Falls of Clyde provided it in abundance.
Other aspects of the New Lanark site were less auspicious; a narrow boggy strip of land at the bottom of a steep ravine with difficult access and poor roads linking it to the Clyde ports. But these were problems to be over
SEE NOVEMBER EDITION OF SCOTTISH FIELD TO READ FULL
STORY
In this month's issue Alan Cochrane writes about new penalties for wildlife crimes. Do you think it would be fair to ban keepers for life for certain wildlife crimes?
