Shandon Hydro - A Scottish Gem

 In 1833, Robert Napier, a Scottish marine engineer and shipbuilder bought land on the edge of the Gareloch at West Shandon to build a summer cottage, but soon like many of the Glasgow merchants he looked for an architect to build him a fairytale castle.  John Thomas Rochead had won a competition to design the Royal Arch in Dundee and would later design the Wallace memorial.  Napier commissioned him to create a mansion.  This was to be West Shandon House which cost £130,000 to build and was completed in 1852.  No expense was spared to build a quality house and Napier and his wife Isabelle Denny filled their new home with paintings by artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Vandyke and Titian, hung Gobelin tapestries and displayed objet d’art such as Sevres porcelain. They lived there happily until Isabelle died in 1875 and Robert in 1876.

The house was soon sold to a Glasgow based syndicate who intended to turn it into a hydropathic hotel.  Hydros, providing water cures in a luxury hotel, were particularly popular in Scotland at this time with more than 20 opening in the latter part of the 19^th century.  Shandon Hydro, as it was called, included a heated salt water swimming pool, Turkish baths, a bowling green, a croquet lawn, a golf course and tennis courts.  There was a library full of popular books and greenhouses provided fresh flowers.  Smoking was strictly forbidden except in the Conservatory.

Safe pleasure boats were provided on the loch and broughams or landaus could be rented to take visitors on trips to Loch Lomond or Loch Long.  The Hydro proved extremely popular, until it was requisitioned early in World War One as an experimental submarine base and naval hospital.  Although restored to its role as a Hotel between the wars, its position next to the deep sea-loch on the Clyde made it essential to the navy once again in 1939.  Its popularity declined until it was destroyed in 1957 to make way for the Faslane naval base.

An interesting article on golf in Shandon can be found here

Doon the Watter #Nostalgia on the Clyde

Leaving the Broomielaw about 1900

The pictures in this post come from “Clyde Water” by Maurice Lindsay published in 1958. 

Dunoon in the 1840s

Mansions and marine villas in Dunoon and other seaside villages in the firth of Clyde were built by merchants, self-made men who dealt in tea, tobacco, soap, coal, iron and steel, ships and railway engines.  During the 1930s houses on the west coast of Scotland were still being taken for the summer as they had been at Bournemouth in Edwardian times.

In his book, Maurice reminisces on his childhood memories of trips, “Doon the watter,” in the 1930s.

He describes his first voyage on RMS Columba from Broomielaw in Glasgow thus,

‘We set out on the first of July; mother and father, nurse, four children, dog, cat and goldfish.  A great deal of luggage had to be taken.  We got up at five in the morning and a horse-drawn cart arrived at six to carry the luggage down to the quay.  I was given the job of guarding the cat while the luggage was being grunted and manoeuvred round the bends of the staircase.  The cat had the idea that if he managed to escape he would not have to undergo his ordeal of transportation by basket.

The Columba had two red and black funnels and huge gilded paddle-boxes.  She smelt of heated engine oil, good galley cooking and well-scrubbed cleanliness.  We established ourselves in the saloon where there were a number of seated bays lined with dark red velvet plush, richly draped with similar hangings.  The cat remained obligingly silent, but at the entrance a liveried steward looked at me with an air of hostility. “What’s in that basket?” he demanded.  “Provisions,” I answered.  He grunted and let us past.

Up on deck the Captain took a final look at his watch, another at the quay, then pulled the clanging brass levers by his side.  The paddles began to thresh the water, nosing the ship’s bow towards the centre of the river and we slid slowly forward, past miles of shipyards, resounding with the racket of the riveters welding the rusty hulks of the ships, past towering ocean-going liners and rusty old dredgers squatting in the middle of the river."

The Lord of the Isles arriving at Rothesay in 1900

After a morning’s sail to Dunoon past Greenock and Gourock, the sail to Innellan took 20 minutes.  A taxi hurled us along the shore road to the house, which stood at the foot of a terraced hill garden 200 yards from the shore. A horse and cart bearing our heavy luggage crunched its patient way up the garden path.  Once unpacked, it was time for High tea and then for the garden.”

The Waverley arriving at Rothesay about 1950