Greenock
Encyclopedia
Greenock is a town and administrative centre
in the Inverclyde
council area in United Kingdom
, and a former burgh
within the historic county
of Renfrewshire
, located in the west central Lowlands
of Scotland
. It forms part of a contiguous urban area with Gourock
to the west and Port Glasgow
to the east.
Greenock's population was recorded as being 45,467 in the 2001 census
, a decrease from about 78,000 in 1966. It lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the "Tail of the Bank
" where the River Clyde
expands into the Firth of Clyde
.
"Grianaig" meaning a sunny place. The suggestion that the town's name comes from the words Green Oak is folk etymology, but the image has been taken as a logo for the town's main shopping centre, The Oak Mall and was once emblazoned on the local Co-operative Society
emblem. The myth that 'Greenock' derives from 'Green Oak' is also perpetrated in a local song (The Green Oak Tree) and in the fact that the local dialect
makes virtually no distinction between the syllables -ock and -oak. Significantly, no green oak appears on the town's coat of arms
which features three sugar caskets, a sailing ship in full sail and three herring
above the motto God Speed Greenock.
and Wester Greenock. Cartsburn
and Easter Greenock had existed as a single estate since the rule of Mary, Queen of Scots. A small fishing village was established there sometime prior to 1592. By 1670 a Crown Charter united the estates as the Burgh and Barony of Greenock with the exception of Cartsburn
, which in 1669 became a distinct Barony with Burgh of Barony of Cartsdyke or Crawfurdsdyke. Greenock was quickly established as a port, and was the location for the second voyage as part of the ill-fated Darien Scheme
. This fleet left on August 18, 1699 arriving in Panama
on 30 November with the majority of its passengers diseased or dead. After the Act of Union 1707, Greenock's facilities made it the main port on the West Coast and it prospered due to trade with the Americas
, importing sugar
from the Caribbean
.
In 1827 Loch Thom
was constructed as a reservoir with The Cut aqueduct
, bringing water to power industry.
Greenock Central railway station
at Cathcart Street opened in 1841, for the first time providing a fast route from Glasgow to the coast linking up with Clyde steamer
services. The provision of this new line eliminated the necessity of taking the steamer all the way down river from Glasgow. In 1869 the Caledonian Railway
was bypassed by the rival Glasgow and South Western Railway
which opened a station on the waterfront at Princes Pier. To regain custom, the Caledonian Railway extended (what is now known as the Inverclyde Line
) the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway
west to Gourock; this line was built to run inland through deep cuttings and tunnels to avoid disturbance to the villas of Greenock's west end. The Gourock line opened in 1889.
building was designed by William Burn
in 1818 and is considered by many to be the finest in Britain
. It underwent extensive refurbishment which was completed in 1989 and, until closure of the building in 2010, housed a customs
and excise
museum
which was open to the public. In June 2008 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) announced that the building would close in 2011 as part of a rationalisation project with any jobs being transferred to offices in Glasgow
. In response, staff, their union PCS
and local politicians organised a campaign to oppose HMRCs plans. Despite this widespread opposition HMRC announced in December 2008 that the closure would definitely go ahead. In the event, the building closed ahead of schedule in August 2010 and now lies empty.
Greenock's increasing importance and wealth was manifested in the construction of the Italianate Municipal Buildings, whose Victoria Tower, completed in 1886, stands 245 feet (74.7 m) tall. Begun five years previously in a competition won by architects H. & D. Barclay, it exceeds the height of the tower of Glasgow City Chambers
by more than a metre. The Municipal Buildings remain uncompleted, as a local businessman called Robert Cowan refused to sell his building in front of the tower for less than his own price, preventing completion of the right hand façade
of the southern elevation.
which almost convinces the visitor that no heavy industry could have been anywhere nearby.
the Newton Street railway tunnel emerges near the coast. The excavated material from the construction of the tunnel was used as landfill to the west of the old coastal gun emplacement of Fort Matilda, forming a level area which became the playing fields of Battery Park.
In 1907 the Admiralty
compulsorily purchased part of this land and constructed the Clyde Torpedo Factory, which opened in 1910, with 700 workers transferred from the Royal Arsenal
, Woolwich
. The site was tasked with designing and testing of torpedoes. These were then tested in Loch Long
. During the Second World War the site switched entirely to manufacturing torpedoes. The original gun battery site was occupied by the Navy Buildings, the main offices, just to the east of the torpedo factory buildings.
. In 1926, to make way for expansion of the Harland & Wolff shipyard (the present-day location of Container Way), the Old West Kirk was relocated to a new site on the Esplanade where it still stands. The church is notable for stained glass
by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti
and Sir Edward Burne-Jones
. The Church has a web site which can be found at http://www.owkgreenock.info/
became the base for the Home Fleet as well as the main assembly point for Atlantic convoys. On 30 April 1940 the French
Vauquelin class destroyer
Maillé Brézé
blew up off Greenock with heavy loss of life following an accident involving two of her own torpedoes. Although this disaster occurred before the Free French Naval Forces were established, many people tend to regard the Cross of Lorraine
on Lyle Hill
as a memorial to the loss of the Maillé Brézé as well as to the later losses of the Free French naval vessels which sailed from the town. On the nights of 6 May and 7 May 1941 around 300 Luftwaffe
aircraft attacked the town in the Greenock Blitz
.
A large building housing a drapery business constructed on Cowan's property at the corner of the Municipal Buildings was badly damaged and was demolished, leaving the blank brick corner area still known as "Cowan's Corner". This was later set as a garden for the blind.
The original blank brick of Cowans Corner was covered in 2008 as part of the continuing work to improve the look of the town centre.
of Further and Higher Education.
Greenock reached its population peak in 1921 (81,123) and was once the sixth largest town in Scotland.
constituency. In 1997 it became Greenock and Inverclyde
. After the redistribution of Scottish seats it was merged into an enlarged Inverclyde
constituency- the first time in political history that Greenock has not been named in a parliamentary seat. Greenock and Inverclyde
remains a Scottish Parliament
constituency.
, Bow Farm, Braeside
, Branchton, Bridgend, Broomhill, Cartsburn
, Cornhaddock, Fancy Farm, Fort Matilda
, Gibshill
, Greenock West, Grieve Hill, Hole Farm, Larkfield
, Lyle Hill, Lynedoch Overton
, Pennyfern, Strone, Strone Farm, and Whinhill
.
, sugar
refining and wool
manufacturing for employment, but none of these industries are today part of Greenock's economy. More recently the town relied heavily on electronics
manufacture. However this has given way mostly to call centre
business, insurance
, banking and shipping export
.
The Fleming and Reid merino wool mill employed 500 people - mostly women and produced wool garments spun and woven at the mill. This mill was at the corner of Drumfrochar Road and Mill Road
In the early 17th century, the first pier
was built in Greenock. Shipbuilding was already an important employer by this time. The first proper harbour was constructed in 1710 and the first well-known shipbuilders, Scott's
, was established the following year. It was the oldest shipbuilding business in the world and gained numerous contracts with the Royal Navy
from 1806, building ships such as the Glasgow
.
Scott's was nationalised in 1969 and merged with Lithgows
(founded 1874, later the largest privately owned yard in the world) the same year becoming Scott Lithgow
. From the 1800 to 1980 many thousands of people worked to design, build and repair ships. The reduction in shipbuilding in the 1970s and 1980s meant that none of these companies are still trading.
Greenock Shipbuilders included: Scotts, Browns, William Lithgows, Fergusons, Head the Boat Builder (lifeboats). Other marine engineering related companies included engine-makers - Kincaids, Scotts, Rankin and Blackmore (which included the Eagle Foundry) - ship repair (Lamonts) and Hasties for steering gear. Yacht builders included Adams and McLean (at Cardwell Bay). Other yards included Cartsburn, Cartsdyke, and Klondyke - all of which closed during the 1970s and 1980s due to competition from South Korea
and Japan
.
Part of the site of the Scott's yard, is now a T-Mobile
call centre.
Ship repair work continues at the Garvel dry dock and Shipbuilding continues at Ferguson Shipbuilders
in nearby Port Glasgow
.
Freight traffic is handled at the container cranes
of Greenock's Ocean Terminal, at Prince's Pier which was constructed for the Glasgow and South Western Railway
. The same terminal is a regular port of call for cruise liners visiting the west of Scotland.
Greenock's Great Harbour is one of the three main ports providing marine services support to the Royal Navy, in dual site operation with Faslane at HMNB Clyde
on the Gare Loch
. 240 staff of the former Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service
were transferred to Serco Denholm
under a 15-year £1bn PFI contract awarded in December 2007. This facility means that "Admiralty" boats and tugs are a common sight on the Clyde.
Greenock's attractive esplanade provides a gently curving riverside walk just over a mile (1.6 km) long extending to the west from Ocean Terminal to the Royal West of Scotland Amateur Boat Club sailing, kayaking and rowing facilities and clubhouse at the corner of the Navy Buildings which house a main Her Majesty's Coastguard
centre as well as a Royal Naval Reserve
establishment, HMS Dalriada.
Sugar refining began in Greenock in 1765. John Walker began a sugar refinery in Greenock in 1850 followed by the prominent local cooper
and shipowner Abram Lyle
who, with four partners, purchased the Glebe Sugar Refinery in 1865. Another 12 refineries were active at one point. The most famous of these (and successful, being the only survivor until August 1997) was Tate & Lyle
. It was formed from a merger in 1921 between Abram Lyle, who had expanded into Plaistow
, and Henry Tate
, who had set up a sugar refinery in Liverpool
and had expanded into London
.
By the end of the 19th century, around 400 ships a year were transporting sugar from Caribbean holdings to Greenock for processing. There were 14 sugar refineries, including The Westburn, Walkers, The Glebe, Lochore and Ferguson and Dempster, plus a sugar beet factory on Ingleston Street. Tobacco
from the Americas also arrived here.
When Tate and Lyle finally closed its Greenock refinery in 1997 it brought to an end the town's 150-year old connections with sugar manufacture. A newly built sugar warehouse continued shipping operations at Greenock's Ocean Terminal. The former sugar warehouse at the James Watt Dock was by then scheduled as a category A listed building as a fine example of early industrial architecture, with an unusual feature of a colonnade
of cast iron columns forming a sheltered unloading area next to the quayside. This building has since lain empty, with various schemes being proposed for conversion and restoration. The photographs show the building still intact in February 2006, but a fire on the evening of 12 June 2006 caused severe damage to much of the building before being brought under control in the early hours of 13 June. The local council confirmed that parts of the building will have to be taken down to ensure public safety, but promised an investigation and emphasised the importance of this world heritage building.
Fortunately in 2007, contracts to develop the sugar refinery into housing went ahead and the building is slowly being restored to its grand spectacle along side the ever increasingly developing waterfront of the East end of Greenock!
Many new and exciting housing projects combining new environmentally friendly technologies along with historically fashioned architecture are restoring Greenock's Waterfront facia to its once glorious former self.
arrived in the town in 1951, electronics and light manufacturing have, until recently, been the mainstay of local employment. National Semiconductor
has run a silicon wafer
manufacturing plant in the town since 1970.
However, with manufacturing moving to Eastern Europe
and Asia, work has shifted to the service sector, especially call centres. T-Mobile and IBM both have major call centre operations in Greenock, while the Royal Bank of Scotland
Mortgage Centre processes Mortgage applications from throughout the UK & Ireland.
IBM have in recent years curtailed their operations greatly in the area. Sanmina, another electronics company, took over much of the IBM installation but moved 370 jobs to Hungary
in 2006. The Sanmina plant, which consisted of the former IBM AMDC (Automated Materials Distribution Centre) and Modules buildings 1 to 5, has since ceased operation and was demolished in 2009. The Spango Valley site was rebranded as "Valley Park" in late 2009.
Lenovo has also re-located away from Greenock, and the plant is now at 10% of the 1999/2000 capacity
now forms the central feature of the town, and provides most of the major retail shops in Inverclyde, with approximately 85 units, with main anchor stores including Marks and Spencer, Boots, Primark
and a newly opened New Look
store. Marks and Spencer is in its original building (dating from 1936) which was simply built round during the first phase of pedestrianisation. In addition, two major supermarkets Tesco
and Morrisons
are sited near the mall. A retail estate is located nearby, in front of the Waterfront swimming pool and leisure centre, and the streets around the mall provide a large number of smaller shops. Small groups of shops in most of the areas of the town provide for day to day needs, but most of the specialist shops are in the town centre. The town contains one diplomatic mission, an Italian
consulate.
Greenock is Scotland's best served town in terms of railway stations. It boasts nine: Bogston
, Cartsdyke
, Greenock Central
, Greenock West
, Fort Matilda
, Whinhill
, Drumfrochar
, Branchton
and IBM Halt
. Only Glasgow has a much greater number of stations and Edinburgh possesses only one more. Greenock has the longest bored railway tunnel in Scotland at 1.2 miles (1.9 km) in length - the cut and cover tunnels of the North Clyde Line
and Argyle Line
beneath Glasgow City Centre are considerably longer. Located directly under Newton Street in the town, the tunnel allowed for the extension of the railway to Gourock
.
Greenock is also home to a bus service whose long distance service routes travel regularly to Glasgow, Largs and Dunoon. The Largs to Glasgow corridor is served by 3 different services, the 901, 906 and 908 and all of which service Greenock Town Centre bus station, this provides a bus along this route every 15 minutes for most of the day, Monday to Saturday. They also have a number of local services which cover the majority of Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow.
The 907 offers a very popular service from Glasgow, Buchanan bus station to Dunoon. This service runs every 2 hours and takes in Braehead shopping centre, Port Glasgow town centre, Greenock town centre and Gourock before heading to the ferry terminal at McInroy's Point and boarding the Western Ferry to Hunters Quay and heading into Dunoon itself.
The X7 service provided offers travel from Greenock to Glasgow, although this takes a bit longer than the direct services mentioned before as it covers the Slaemuir area of Port Glasgow before travelling through to Kilmacolm, Bridge of Weir, Houston and Linwood, then joining the motorway to Braehead before heading into Glasgow City Centre.
Greenock is located at the end of the A8 road/M8 motorway which begins in Edinburgh
. It is also the northern terminus of Euroroute E05 which heads south through England
, France
and Spain
, ending at the Spanish port and container terminal of Algeciras
.
's 1965 novel A Green Tree in Gedde. It is fictionalised as 'Gantock' by Robin Jenkins in his 1979 novel Fergus Lamont (The Gky shoal
in the Firth of Clyde
nearby, just off Dunoon
). Alasdair Gray
's 1984 novel 1982, Janine
is set in a Greenock hotel room. Matthew Fitt
's cyberpunk
novel But'n'Ben A-Go-Go
features a submerged Greenock after the effects of global warming
. Greenock featured in several of the poems of W.S. Graham (evoking his childhood) and Douglas Dunn
. Greenock is home to the world's first Burns Club
, The Mother Club, which was founded in 1801 by merchants born in Ayrshire
, some of whom had known Robert Burns. They held the first Burns Supper on what they thought was his birthday on 29 January 1802, but in 1803 discovered from the Ayr parish records that the correct date was 25 January 1759. The Victorian
landscape artist John Atkinson Grimshaw
depicted a somewhat idealised Greenock in several of his paintings. The Mclean Museum
is the largest museum in the Inverclyde area, featuring exhibitions on James Watt
and a collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts. The Arts Guild Theatre (Greenock)
is a local venue thay hosts many comedians, musicians and plays every year.
(1979), Down Where The Buffalo Go
(1988) and Down Among the Big Boys (1993) and the cinema films Sweet Sixteen
(2002) and Dear Frankie
(2004).
. Dating from 1857, it is one of the oldest daily local newspapers in the United Kingdom. Inverclyde FM on line is a community Internet radio
station run by volunteers.
Greenock's most noted son is the engineer James Watt
. He is remembered in the name of the local college, at the library instituted in his memory, by the original James Watt Memorial College building on the site of his birth place in William Street which incorporates a commemorative statue and by a much-loved pub.
Other famous Greenockians include: the composers Hamish MacCunn
and William Wallace
, musicians John McGeoch
and Thomas Leer
, poets Denis Devlin
, W. S. Graham
and Jean Adam
, merchant Matthew Algie
, actors Richard Wilson and Stella Gonet
, artist William Scott
, playwrights Bill Bryden
, Neil Paterson
and Peter McDougall
, comedian Charles 'Chic' Murray
, opera singer Hugh Enes Blackmore
, broadcaster Jimmy Mack
, American football
player Lawrence Tynes
, Antarctic explorer Henry Robertson 'Birdie' Bowers, and footballer Ryan McWilliams
claimed on death row
that he was born in Greenock, however subsequent evidence has shown that he was born either in Belfast
or Dundee
.
Robert Burns
' love Mary Campbell (Highland Mary) and her father sailed from Campbeltown
to visit her brother in Greenock early in October 1786. Her brother fell ill with typhus
, which she caught while nursing him. She died of typhus on 20 or 21 October 1786, and was buried in the Old West Kirk graveyard. In 1842 increasing interest in their romance led to a monument being erected by public subscription to mark the grave. In 1920 when the church site was needed to expand Harland and Wolff
’s shipyard, the monument was moved to its present site in Greenock Cemetery, with her remains being transferred to a casket and re-interred with due ceremony. The church itself was moved and rebuilt in its current location at the west end of the Esplanade in 1926.
The novelist John Galt, noted for founding Guelph
, Ontario
in 1827, lived in the town and based some of his work, most notably Annals of the Parish (1821), on Greenock and surrounding towns. He is buried in the Inverkip Street Cemetery. The mother of American
comedian
and writer
Jay Leno
, Catherine Muir, was born in Greenock and emigrated to the US as a child. The American actress Julianne Moore
is the daughter of the late Anne Love, a former psychiatric social worker who emigrated from Greenock. The Rev William C. Hewitt
(minister at Westburn Parish Church in Greenock), Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
in 2009-2010, is the first serving minister at a church in Greenock to be appointed.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libya
n intelligence officer convicted of the Lockerbie Bombing was incarcerated at Greenock Prison from 2005 until his release on 20 August 2009.
are the local senior football
team who currently play in the Scottish Football League First Division
. Founded in 1874 as Morton F.C., they play their home matches at Cappielow
. At lower levels of the game, Greenock Juniors F.C. play in the Stagecoach West of Scotland junior football league.
Greenock hosts a rugby union
team, Greenock Wanderers RFC
, and is the home town of the Greenock Cricket Club.
As of 2009, there are plans to build a new multi-purpose facility at Rankin Park.
Greenock’s climate is temperate
maritime having mainly cool summers but with relatively mild winters. Its location means that the heat retentive properties of seawater help keep winter temperatures higher. Additionally, the effect of the Gulf Stream
on the Clyde helps Greenock's average temperature stay approximately one degree above that of eastern coastal towns on the same latitude
. Indeed Greenock's latitude (55.94 degrees north with a longitude of 4.75 degrees west) places it at the same latitude as the Moscow
area. The warming effect of the Gulf Stream however, keeps the winter weather in Greenock much milder than that of Moscow.
Greenock anecdotally has the reputation for having higher than average rainfall (the song The Green Oak Tree comments on this) but this is not statistically true; northwest of Fort William has the highest average rainfall in Scotland. Greenock's location gives long hours of daylight
in midsummer
with the opposite true in midwinter. On the longest day, 21 June, the sun rises at 04:31 and sets at 22:07. In midwinter, 21 December, the sun rises at 08:46 and sets at 15:44.
are:
Veulettes-sur-Mer
, France
Cany-Barville
, France
Administrative centre
An administrative centre is a term often used in several countries to refer to a county town, or other seat of regional or local government, or the place where the central administration of a commune is located....
in the Inverclyde
Inverclyde
Inverclyde is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Together with the Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire council areas, Inverclyde forms part of the historic county of Renfrewshire - which current exists as a registration county and lieutenancy area - located in the west...
council area in United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and a former burgh
Burgh of barony
A burgh of barony is a type of Scottish town .They were distinct from royal burghs as the title was granted to a tenant-in-chief, a landowner who held his estates directly from the crown....
within the historic county
Counties of Scotland
The counties of Scotland were the principal local government divisions of Scotland until 1975. Scotland's current lieutenancy areas and registration counties are largely based on them. They are often referred to as historic counties....
of Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire (historic)
Renfrewshire or the County of Renfrew is a registration county, the Lieutenancy area of the Lord Lieutenant of Renfrewshire, and one of the counties of Scotland used for local government until 1975. Renfrewshire is located in the West Central Lowlands of Scotland, south of the River Clyde,...
, located in the west central Lowlands
Central Lowlands
The Central Lowlands or Midland Valley is a geologically defined area of relatively low-lying land in southern Scotland. It consists of a rift valley between the Highland Boundary Fault to the north and the Southern Uplands Fault to the south...
of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. It forms part of a contiguous urban area with Gourock
Gourock
Gourock is a town falling within the Inverclyde council area and formerly forming a burgh of the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It has in the past functioned as a seaside resort on the Firth of Clyde...
to the west and Port Glasgow
Port Glasgow
Port Glasgow is the second largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16617 persons...
to the east.
Greenock's population was recorded as being 45,467 in the 2001 census
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
, a decrease from about 78,000 in 1966. It lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the "Tail of the Bank
Tail of the Bank
The Tail of the Bank is the name given to the anchorage in the upper Firth of Clyde immediately north of Greenock and Gourock. This area of the firth gets its name from the sandbar immediately to its east which marks the entrance to the estuary of the River Clyde.The Tail of the Bank was a...
" where the River Clyde
River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
expands into the Firth of Clyde
Firth of Clyde
The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...
.
Name
The origin of the town's name is uncertain. It is generally accepted, however, that the town is named after the GaelicScottish Gaelic language
Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
"Grianaig" meaning a sunny place. The suggestion that the town's name comes from the words Green Oak is folk etymology, but the image has been taken as a logo for the town's main shopping centre, The Oak Mall and was once emblazoned on the local Co-operative Society
Co-op UK
The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 3 million individual members. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844....
emblem. The myth that 'Greenock' derives from 'Green Oak' is also perpetrated in a local song (The Green Oak Tree) and in the fact that the local dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
makes virtually no distinction between the syllables -ock and -oak. Significantly, no green oak appears on the town's coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
which features three sugar caskets, a sailing ship in full sail and three herring
Herring
Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...
above the motto God Speed Greenock.
Early history
The area on which Greenock was founded included two estates: Cartsburn and Easter GreenockEaster Greenock Castle
Easter Greenock Castle was a castle of unknown design near the burgh of Greenock, Scotland.Built sometime in the mid-sixteenth century, the castle formed the centre of the lands and estates of Cartsburn and Easter Greenock. These belonged to the Crawfords of Kilbirnie in Ayrshire who acquired them...
and Wester Greenock. Cartsburn
Barony of Cartsburn
The Barony of Cartsburn in the Baronage of Scotland was created for Thomas Crawfurd of Cartsburn in 1669, when the lands of Cartsburn in the Parish of Easter Greenock in the Shire of Renfrew were erected in liberam baronium, as a free Barony held of the Prince and Great Steward of Scotland...
and Easter Greenock had existed as a single estate since the rule of Mary, Queen of Scots. A small fishing village was established there sometime prior to 1592. By 1670 a Crown Charter united the estates as the Burgh and Barony of Greenock with the exception of Cartsburn
Barony of Cartsburn
The Barony of Cartsburn in the Baronage of Scotland was created for Thomas Crawfurd of Cartsburn in 1669, when the lands of Cartsburn in the Parish of Easter Greenock in the Shire of Renfrew were erected in liberam baronium, as a free Barony held of the Prince and Great Steward of Scotland...
, which in 1669 became a distinct Barony with Burgh of Barony of Cartsdyke or Crawfurdsdyke. Greenock was quickly established as a port, and was the location for the second voyage as part of the ill-fated Darien Scheme
Darién scheme
The Darién scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "New Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama in the late 1690s...
. This fleet left on August 18, 1699 arriving in Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
on 30 November with the majority of its passengers diseased or dead. After the Act of Union 1707, Greenock's facilities made it the main port on the West Coast and it prospered due to trade with the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, importing sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
from the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
.
In 1827 Loch Thom
Loch Thom
Loch Thom is a reservoir which since 1827 has provided a water supply to the town of Greenock in Inverclyde, Scotland. It is named after the civil engineer Robert Thom who designed the scheme which created the reservoir and delivered water via a long aqueduct known as The Cut...
was constructed as a reservoir with The Cut aqueduct
Aqueduct
An aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....
, bringing water to power industry.
Greenock Central railway station
Greenock Central railway station
Greenock Central station is one of eight railway stations serving the town of Greenock in western Scotland, and is the nearest to the town centre. This station, which is staffed, is on the Inverclyde Line west of Glasgow Central towards Gourock. It has three platforms, two of which are in use,...
at Cathcart Street opened in 1841, for the first time providing a fast route from Glasgow to the coast linking up with Clyde steamer
Clyde steamer
The era of the Clyde steamer in Scotland began in August 1812 with the very first successful commercial steamboat service in Europe, when Henry Bell's began a passenger service on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock...
services. The provision of this new line eliminated the necessity of taking the steamer all the way down river from Glasgow. In 1869 the Caledonian Railway
Caledonian Railway
The Caledonian Railway was a major Scottish railway company. It was formed in the early 19th century and it was absorbed almost a century later into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, in the 1923 railway grouping, by means of the Railways Act 1921...
was bypassed by the rival Glasgow and South Western Railway
Glasgow and South Western Railway
The Glasgow and South Western Railway , one of the pre-grouping railway companies, served a triangular area of south-west Scotland, between Glasgow, Stranraer and Carlisle...
which opened a station on the waterfront at Princes Pier. To regain custom, the Caledonian Railway extended (what is now known as the Inverclyde Line
Inverclyde Line
The Inverclyde Line is a railway line running from Glasgow Central station through Paisley and a series of stations to the south of the River Clyde and the Firth of Clyde, terminating at Gourock and Wemyss Bay, where it connects to Caledonian MacBrayne ferry services...
) the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway
Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway
The Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway was an early railway, which merged with the Caledonian Railway. It was created to provide train services between Greenock and Glasgow.-History:...
west to Gourock; this line was built to run inland through deep cuttings and tunnels to avoid disturbance to the villas of Greenock's west end. The Gourock line opened in 1889.
Custom House
The Greenock Custom HouseCustom House
A custom house or customs house was a building housing the offices for the government officials who processed the paperwork for the import and export of goods into and out of a country. Customs officials also collected customs duty on imported goods....
building was designed by William Burn
William Burn
William Burn was a Scottish architect, pioneer of the Scottish Baronial style.He was born in Edinburgh, the son of architect Robert Burn, and educated at the Royal High School. After training with the architect of the British Museum, Sir Robert Smirke, he returned to Edinburgh in 1812...
in 1818 and is considered by many to be the finest in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. It underwent extensive refurbishment which was completed in 1989 and, until closure of the building in 2010, housed a customs
Customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting and safeguarding customs duties and for controlling the flow of goods including animals, transports, personal effects and hazardous items in and out of a country...
and excise
Excise
Excise tax in the United States is a indirect tax on listed items. Excise taxes can be and are made by federal, state and local governments and are far from uniform throughout the United States...
museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
which was open to the public. In June 2008 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) announced that the building would close in 2011 as part of a rationalisation project with any jobs being transferred to offices in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
. In response, staff, their union PCS
Public and Commercial Services Union
The Public and Commercial Services Union is the sixth largest trade union in the United Kingdom. Most of its members work in government departments and other public bodies although some work for private companies.- Membership and organisation :...
and local politicians organised a campaign to oppose HMRCs plans. Despite this widespread opposition HMRC announced in December 2008 that the closure would definitely go ahead. In the event, the building closed ahead of schedule in August 2010 and now lies empty.
Victoria Tower
Glasgow City Chambers
The City Chambers in Glasgow, Scotland has functioned as the headquarters of Glasgow City Council since 1996, and of preceding forms of civic government in the city since 1889, located on the eastern side of the city's George Square...
by more than a metre. The Municipal Buildings remain uncompleted, as a local businessman called Robert Cowan refused to sell his building in front of the tower for less than his own price, preventing completion of the right hand façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
of the southern elevation.
Villas
Further evidence of this wealth can be seen in the large villas of Greenock's west end, one time home to the ship owners, industrialists and investors. The area is fronted by the mile long (1.6 km) sweep of the Esplanade with its views across the Clyde to KilcregganKilcreggan
Kilcreggan is a village in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.It developed on the north shore of the Firth of Clyde at a time when Clyde steamers brought it within easy reach of Glasgow at about 25 miles west of the centre of Glasgow by boat...
which almost convinces the visitor that no heavy industry could have been anywhere nearby.
Battery Park and torpedoes
At Fort Matilda railway stationFort Matilda railway station
Fort Matilda railway station lies at the far western edge of the town of Greenock. It is a non-staffed station, and is the last stop before the terminus of Gourock on the Inverclyde Line out of Glasgow Central station.-History:...
the Newton Street railway tunnel emerges near the coast. The excavated material from the construction of the tunnel was used as landfill to the west of the old coastal gun emplacement of Fort Matilda, forming a level area which became the playing fields of Battery Park.
In 1907 the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
compulsorily purchased part of this land and constructed the Clyde Torpedo Factory, which opened in 1910, with 700 workers transferred from the Royal Arsenal
Royal Arsenal
The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, originally known as the Woolwich Warren, carried out armaments manufacture, ammunition proofing and explosives research for the British armed forces. It was sited on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London, England.-Early history:The Warren...
, Woolwich
Woolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
. The site was tasked with designing and testing of torpedoes. These were then tested in Loch Long
Loch Long
Loch Long is a body of water in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The sea loch extends from the Firth of Clyde at its southwestern end. It measures approximately 20 miles in length, with a width of between one and two miles...
. During the Second World War the site switched entirely to manufacturing torpedoes. The original gun battery site was occupied by the Navy Buildings, the main offices, just to the east of the torpedo factory buildings.
Old West Kirk
A church had been established in Greenock in 1591 under the patronage of John Schaw, the first built in Scotland since the ReformationScottish Reformation
The Scottish Reformation was Scotland's formal break with the Papacy in 1560, and the events surrounding this. It was part of the wider European Protestant Reformation; and in Scotland's case culminated ecclesiastically in the re-establishment of the church along Reformed lines, and politically in...
. In 1926, to make way for expansion of the Harland & Wolff shipyard (the present-day location of Container Way), the Old West Kirk was relocated to a new site on the Esplanade where it still stands. The church is notable for stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...
and Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...
. The Church has a web site which can be found at http://www.owkgreenock.info/
Second World War
Greenock suffered badly during the Second World War and its anchorage at the Tail of the BankTail of the Bank
The Tail of the Bank is the name given to the anchorage in the upper Firth of Clyde immediately north of Greenock and Gourock. This area of the firth gets its name from the sandbar immediately to its east which marks the entrance to the estuary of the River Clyde.The Tail of the Bank was a...
became the base for the Home Fleet as well as the main assembly point for Atlantic convoys. On 30 April 1940 the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Vauquelin class destroyer
Vauquelin class destroyer
The Vauquelin-class large destroyers of the French navy were laid down in 1930 and commissioned in 1931. They were very similar to the previous Aigle class, the only difference being a single extra torpedo tube....
Maillé Brézé
French destroyer Maillé Brézé (1933)
The Maillé Brézé was a Vauquelin class destroyer of the French Navy lost in an accidental explosion during World War II.On 30 April 1940, at 14:15, as Maillé Brézé was anchored at the Tail of the Bank off Greenock, a torpedo tube misfunctioned and launched an armed torpedo on the deck, setting fire...
blew up off Greenock with heavy loss of life following an accident involving two of her own torpedoes. Although this disaster occurred before the Free French Naval Forces were established, many people tend to regard the Cross of Lorraine
Cross of Lorraine
The Cross of Lorraine is originally a heraldic cross. The two-barred cross consists of a vertical line crossed by two smaller horizontal bars. In the ancient version, both bars were of the same length. In 20th century use it is "graded" with the upper bar being the shortest...
on Lyle Hill
Lyle Hill
Lyle Hill is a viewpoint in Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland.Providing a panoramic view across the Clyde estuary, its highest point is 426 feet above sea level. It overlooks Gourock and the 'Tail of the Bank', an area of the River Clyde denoting the point at which the river becomes the Firth of Clyde...
as a memorial to the loss of the Maillé Brézé as well as to the later losses of the Free French naval vessels which sailed from the town. On the nights of 6 May and 7 May 1941 around 300 Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
aircraft attacked the town in the Greenock Blitz
Greenock Blitz
The Greenock Blitz is the name given to two nights of intensive bombing of the town of Greenock, Scotland during the Second World War when the Nazi German Luftwaffe attacked in May 1941....
.
A large building housing a drapery business constructed on Cowan's property at the corner of the Municipal Buildings was badly damaged and was demolished, leaving the blank brick corner area still known as "Cowan's Corner". This was later set as a garden for the blind.
The original blank brick of Cowans Corner was covered in 2008 as part of the continuing work to improve the look of the town centre.
Postwar years
Greenock thrived in the post-war years but as the heavy industries declined in the 1970s and 1980s unemployment became a major problem, and it has only been in the last ten years with reinvestment and the redevelopment of large sections of the town that the local economy has started to revive. Tourism has appeared as an unexpected bonus with the development of the Clydeport Container Terminal as an Ocean Terminal for cruise ships crossing the Atlantic. Students who do not travel further afield for study often attend the James Watt CollegeJames Watt College
The James Watt College is a further education college in Greenock, Scotland.-History, facilities:The James Watt Memorial College on the corner of William Street and Dalrymple Street was officially opened as the Watt Memorial Engineering and Navigation School on 1 June 1908...
of Further and Higher Education.
Greenock reached its population peak in 1921 (81,123) and was once the sixth largest town in Scotland.
Governance
Until 1974 Greenock was a parliamentary burgh in its own right. It was merged with Port Glasgow to form Greenock and Port GlasgowGreenock and Port Glasgow (UK Parliament constituency)
Greenock and Port Glasgow was a burgh constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1974 until 1997, electing one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.-Boundaries:...
constituency. In 1997 it became Greenock and Inverclyde
Greenock and Inverclyde (UK Parliament constituency)
Greenock and Inverclyde was a burgh constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1997 until 2005, when was replaced by the Inverclyde constituency...
. After the redistribution of Scottish seats it was merged into an enlarged Inverclyde
Inverclyde (UK Parliament constituency)
Inverclyde is a parliamentary constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It replaced Greenock and Inverclyde and the Port Glasgow and Kilmacolm areas from West Renfrewshire for the 2005 general election....
constituency- the first time in political history that Greenock has not been named in a parliamentary seat. Greenock and Inverclyde
Greenock and Inverclyde (Scottish Parliament constituency)
Greenock and Inverclyde is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament . It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament by the first past the post method of election...
remains a Scottish Parliament
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament...
constituency.
Health
The Inverclyde Royal Hospital is located in Greenock serving the population of Inverclyde, Largs, Bute and the Cowal Peninsula. Ravenscraig Hospital deals with psychiatric, day patients, referrals and specialised prescribing.Areas and suburbs
Arran View, BogstonBogston railway station
Bogston railway station is on the Inverclyde Line, between the towns of Port Glasgow and Greenock in Inverclyde council area, Scotland. The station is 35 km west of Glasgow Central....
, Bow Farm, Braeside
Braeside, Greenock
Braeside is a neighbourhood situated on the far west side of Greenock, in Inverclyde, Scotland.It has two primary schools in its vicinity, Ravenscraig and St. Gabriels, a high school Inverclyde Academy as well as a special school for handicapped children, Glenburn...
, Branchton, Bridgend, Broomhill, Cartsburn
Barony of Cartsburn
The Barony of Cartsburn in the Baronage of Scotland was created for Thomas Crawfurd of Cartsburn in 1669, when the lands of Cartsburn in the Parish of Easter Greenock in the Shire of Renfrew were erected in liberam baronium, as a free Barony held of the Prince and Great Steward of Scotland...
, Cornhaddock, Fancy Farm, Fort Matilda
Fort Matilda railway station
Fort Matilda railway station lies at the far western edge of the town of Greenock. It is a non-staffed station, and is the last stop before the terminus of Gourock on the Inverclyde Line out of Glasgow Central station.-History:...
, Gibshill
Gibshill
Gibshill is the eastern-most housing estate in Greenock and adjoins Port Glasgow, both in the Inverclyde Council Area, Scotland. It is served by Bogston railway station....
, Greenock West, Grieve Hill, Hole Farm, Larkfield
Larkfield, Greenock
Larkfield is the largest council housing estate in Greenock, Scotland.It is named after Larkfield Farm but Larkfield Road is mostly in Gourock rather than Larkfield itself...
, Lyle Hill, Lynedoch Overton
Overton, Greenock
Overton is an area in the suburbs of Greenock, Inverclyde. Overton offers excellent views across the River Clyde and suburban Greenock.The area is the closest in Greenock to "The Cut" which was completed in 1827, bringing a water supply from Loch Thom to Overton, where the Shaws Water Works...
, Pennyfern, Strone, Strone Farm, and Whinhill
Whinhill railway station
Whinhill railway station is a railway station located in the east of the town of Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland. The station is managed by First ScotRail and is served by Inverclyde Line services between Glasgow and Wemyss Bay....
.
Economy
Historically, the town relied on shipbuildingShipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...
, sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
refining and wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
manufacturing for employment, but none of these industries are today part of Greenock's economy. More recently the town relied heavily on electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
manufacture. However this has given way mostly to call centre
Call centre
A call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing,...
business, insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
, banking and shipping export
Export
The term export is derived from the conceptual meaning as to ship the goods and services out of the port of a country. The seller of such goods and services is referred to as an "exporter" who is based in the country of export whereas the overseas based buyer is referred to as an "importer"...
.
The Fleming and Reid merino wool mill employed 500 people - mostly women and produced wool garments spun and woven at the mill. This mill was at the corner of Drumfrochar Road and Mill Road
Shipbuilding
Pier
A pier is a raised structure, including bridge and building supports and walkways, over water, typically supported by widely spread piles or pillars...
was built in Greenock. Shipbuilding was already an important employer by this time. The first proper harbour was constructed in 1710 and the first well-known shipbuilders, Scott's
Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company
Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, often referred to simply as Scotts, was a Scottish shipbuilding company based in Greenock on the River Clyde.- History :...
, was established the following year. It was the oldest shipbuilding business in the world and gained numerous contracts with the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
from 1806, building ships such as the Glasgow
HMS Glasgow (C21)
The seventh HMS Glasgow , built on the Clyde, was a Southampton-class light cruiser, a sub-class of the Town-class and commissioned in September 1937. She displaced 11,930 tons and had a top speed of 32 knots . She was part of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet; she escorted the...
.
Scott's was nationalised in 1969 and merged with Lithgows
Lithgows
Lithgows Limited, was a British shipbuilding company based in Kingston, Port Glasgow, on the River Clyde in Scotland.-Founding:The Company was established by Joseph Russell and his partners Anderson Rodger and William Lithgow who leased the Bay Yard in Port Glasgow from Cunliffe & Dunlop and...
(founded 1874, later the largest privately owned yard in the world) the same year becoming Scott Lithgow
Scott Lithgow
-History:The Company was formed in 1967 by the merger of Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company and Lithgows. Scott Lithgow was based in Port Glasgow and Greenock on the lower Clyde in Scotland. Scott Lithgow was nationalised and subsumed into British Shipbuilders in 1977...
. From the 1800 to 1980 many thousands of people worked to design, build and repair ships. The reduction in shipbuilding in the 1970s and 1980s meant that none of these companies are still trading.
Greenock Shipbuilders included: Scotts, Browns, William Lithgows, Fergusons, Head the Boat Builder (lifeboats). Other marine engineering related companies included engine-makers - Kincaids, Scotts, Rankin and Blackmore (which included the Eagle Foundry) - ship repair (Lamonts) and Hasties for steering gear. Yacht builders included Adams and McLean (at Cardwell Bay). Other yards included Cartsburn, Cartsdyke, and Klondyke - all of which closed during the 1970s and 1980s due to competition from South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Part of the site of the Scott's yard, is now a T-Mobile
T-Mobile
T-Mobile International AG is a German-based holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. Based in Bonn, Germany, its subsidiaries operate GSM and UMTS-based cellular networks in Europe, the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
call centre.
Ship repair work continues at the Garvel dry dock and Shipbuilding continues at Ferguson Shipbuilders
Ferguson Shipbuilders
Ferguson Shipbuilders Limited is a shipyard located in Port Glasgow on the River Clyde in Scotland. It is the last remaining shipbuilder on the lower Clyde, and is currently the only builder of merchant ships on the river - the company's mainstay has long been Roll-on/roll-off ferries.-History:The...
in nearby Port Glasgow
Port Glasgow
Port Glasgow is the second largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16617 persons...
.
Shipping
Portainer
A container crane is a type of large dockside gantry crane found at container terminals for loading and unloading intermodal containers from container ships....
of Greenock's Ocean Terminal, at Prince's Pier which was constructed for the Glasgow and South Western Railway
Glasgow and South Western Railway
The Glasgow and South Western Railway , one of the pre-grouping railway companies, served a triangular area of south-west Scotland, between Glasgow, Stranraer and Carlisle...
. The same terminal is a regular port of call for cruise liners visiting the west of Scotland.
Greenock's Great Harbour is one of the three main ports providing marine services support to the Royal Navy, in dual site operation with Faslane at HMNB Clyde
HMNB Clyde
Her Majesty's Naval Base Clyde is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy...
on the Gare Loch
Gare Loch
The Gare Loch or Gareloch is a sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.-Geography:A sea loch aligned north-south, Gare Loch is 10 kilometres long with an average width of 1.5 kilometres. At its southern end it opens into the Firth of Clyde through the Rhu narrows...
. 240 staff of the former Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service
Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service
The Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service was a British Government agency which ran a variety of non-combat support vessels for the Royal Navy.-Organisation:...
were transferred to Serco Denholm
Serco Denholm
Serco Denholm is a joint venture between Serco Group and Denholm Group providing marine services support to the Royal Navy at the United Kingdom's three main naval bases, HMNB Portsmouth, HMNB Devonport and HMNB Clyde....
under a 15-year £1bn PFI contract awarded in December 2007. This facility means that "Admiralty" boats and tugs are a common sight on the Clyde.
Greenock's attractive esplanade provides a gently curving riverside walk just over a mile (1.6 km) long extending to the west from Ocean Terminal to the Royal West of Scotland Amateur Boat Club sailing, kayaking and rowing facilities and clubhouse at the corner of the Navy Buildings which house a main Her Majesty's Coastguard
Her Majesty's Coastguard
Her Majesty's Coastguard is the service of the government of the United Kingdom concerned with co-ordinating air-sea rescue.HM Coastguard is a section of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency responsible for the initiation and co-ordination of all civilian maritime Search and Rescue within the UK...
centre as well as a Royal Naval Reserve
Royal Naval Reserve
The Royal Naval Reserve is the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. The present Royal Naval Reserve was formed in 1958 by merging the original Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve , a reserve of civilian volunteers founded in 1903...
establishment, HMS Dalriada.
Sugar
Cooper (profession)
Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...
and shipowner Abram Lyle
Abram Lyle
Abram Lyle is noted for founding the sugar refiners Abram Lyle & Sons which merged with a rival to become Tate & Lyle in 1921....
who, with four partners, purchased the Glebe Sugar Refinery in 1865. Another 12 refineries were active at one point. The most famous of these (and successful, being the only survivor until August 1997) was Tate & Lyle
Tate & Lyle
Tate & Lyle plc is a British-based multinational agribusiness. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index as of 20 June 2011...
. It was formed from a merger in 1921 between Abram Lyle, who had expanded into Plaistow
Plaistow, Newham
Plaistow is a place in the London Borough of Newham in east London. It formed part of the County Borough of West Ham in Essex until 1965.Plaistow is a mainly residential area, including several council estates; the main road is the A112 - Plaistow Road, High Street, Broadway, Greengate Street and...
, and Henry Tate
Henry Tate
Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet was an English sugar merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the Tate Gallery, London.-Life and career:...
, who had set up a sugar refinery in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and had expanded into London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
By the end of the 19th century, around 400 ships a year were transporting sugar from Caribbean holdings to Greenock for processing. There were 14 sugar refineries, including The Westburn, Walkers, The Glebe, Lochore and Ferguson and Dempster, plus a sugar beet factory on Ingleston Street. Tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
from the Americas also arrived here.
When Tate and Lyle finally closed its Greenock refinery in 1997 it brought to an end the town's 150-year old connections with sugar manufacture. A newly built sugar warehouse continued shipping operations at Greenock's Ocean Terminal. The former sugar warehouse at the James Watt Dock was by then scheduled as a category A listed building as a fine example of early industrial architecture, with an unusual feature of a colonnade
Colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building....
of cast iron columns forming a sheltered unloading area next to the quayside. This building has since lain empty, with various schemes being proposed for conversion and restoration. The photographs show the building still intact in February 2006, but a fire on the evening of 12 June 2006 caused severe damage to much of the building before being brought under control in the early hours of 13 June. The local council confirmed that parts of the building will have to be taken down to ensure public safety, but promised an investigation and emphasised the importance of this world heritage building.
Fortunately in 2007, contracts to develop the sugar refinery into housing went ahead and the building is slowly being restored to its grand spectacle along side the ever increasingly developing waterfront of the East end of Greenock!
Many new and exciting housing projects combining new environmentally friendly technologies along with historically fashioned architecture are restoring Greenock's Waterfront facia to its once glorious former self.
Electronics
Since IBMIBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
arrived in the town in 1951, electronics and light manufacturing have, until recently, been the mainstay of local employment. National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer, that specialized in analog devices and subsystems,formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. The products of National Semiconductor included power management circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers,...
has run a silicon wafer
Silicon
Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, the nonmetal directly above it in the periodic table, but more reactive than germanium, the metalloid directly below it in the table...
manufacturing plant in the town since 1970.
However, with manufacturing moving to Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
and Asia, work has shifted to the service sector, especially call centres. T-Mobile and IBM both have major call centre operations in Greenock, while the Royal Bank of Scotland
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is a British banking and insurance holding company in which the UK Government holds an 84% stake. This stake is held and managed through UK Financial Investments Limited, whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the...
Mortgage Centre processes Mortgage applications from throughout the UK & Ireland.
IBM have in recent years curtailed their operations greatly in the area. Sanmina, another electronics company, took over much of the IBM installation but moved 370 jobs to Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
in 2006. The Sanmina plant, which consisted of the former IBM AMDC (Automated Materials Distribution Centre) and Modules buildings 1 to 5, has since ceased operation and was demolished in 2009. The Spango Valley site was rebranded as "Valley Park" in late 2009.
Lenovo has also re-located away from Greenock, and the plant is now at 10% of the 1999/2000 capacity
Trade and commerce
Greenock's main shopping thoroughfare was Hamilton Street, which connected West Blackhall Street in the west to Clyde Square in the east. In 1975 it disappeared along with several other streets as the area was pedestrianised as Hamilton Way. In the 1990s it was refurbished again, and The Oak Mall indoor shopping centreShopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
now forms the central feature of the town, and provides most of the major retail shops in Inverclyde, with approximately 85 units, with main anchor stores including Marks and Spencer, Boots, Primark
Primark
Primark is a clothing retailer, operating over 223 stores in Ireland , the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Belgium...
and a newly opened New Look
New Look (store)
New Look is a British global fashion retailer with a chain of high street shops in Britain, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Republic of Ireland, Malta, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.-History:...
store. Marks and Spencer is in its original building (dating from 1936) which was simply built round during the first phase of pedestrianisation. In addition, two major supermarkets Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
and Morrisons
Morrisons
Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, headquartered in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The company is usually referred to and is branded as Morrisons formerly Morrison's, and it is part of the FTSE 100 Index of companies...
are sited near the mall. A retail estate is located nearby, in front of the Waterfront swimming pool and leisure centre, and the streets around the mall provide a large number of smaller shops. Small groups of shops in most of the areas of the town provide for day to day needs, but most of the specialist shops are in the town centre. The town contains one diplomatic mission, an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
consulate.
Transport
Greenock's most significant transportation connection is the Container Terminal (see above).Greenock is Scotland's best served town in terms of railway stations. It boasts nine: Bogston
Bogston railway station
Bogston railway station is on the Inverclyde Line, between the towns of Port Glasgow and Greenock in Inverclyde council area, Scotland. The station is 35 km west of Glasgow Central....
, Cartsdyke
Cartsdyke railway station
Cartsdyke railway station serves part of the town of Greenock, Scotland. The station is on the Inverclyde Line, west of .The station is situated between Bawhirley Road and McDougall Street and it serves passengers going to and from Gourock and Glasgow....
, Greenock Central
Greenock Central railway station
Greenock Central station is one of eight railway stations serving the town of Greenock in western Scotland, and is the nearest to the town centre. This station, which is staffed, is on the Inverclyde Line west of Glasgow Central towards Gourock. It has three platforms, two of which are in use,...
, Greenock West
Greenock West railway station
Greenock West railway station is a station in Greenock, Scotland, located on the Inverclyde Line which runs from Gourock to Glasgow Central. The route is currently operated by First ScotRail under the auspices of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport...
, Fort Matilda
Fort Matilda railway station
Fort Matilda railway station lies at the far western edge of the town of Greenock. It is a non-staffed station, and is the last stop before the terminus of Gourock on the Inverclyde Line out of Glasgow Central station.-History:...
, Whinhill
Whinhill railway station
Whinhill railway station is a railway station located in the east of the town of Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland. The station is managed by First ScotRail and is served by Inverclyde Line services between Glasgow and Wemyss Bay....
, Drumfrochar
Drumfrochar railway station
Drumfrochar railway station is a railway station located in a residential district in the south-western part of Greenock, Scotland. The station is managed by First ScotRail and is on the Inverclyde Line, east of ....
, Branchton
Branchton railway station
Branchton railway station is a railway station located in the south-west of the town of Greenock, beside the area called Branchton in Scotland. The station is on the Inverclyde Line, 40 km west of . The station is managed by First ScotRail....
and IBM Halt
IBM railway station
IBM railway station is a railway station on the Inverclyde Line, 41 km west of .Clinging to the south slope of Spango Valley on the Glasgow-Wemyss Bay line, IBM Halt opened on 9 May 1978 to serve what was at that time a thriving computer manufacturing plant employing over 4,000 people...
. Only Glasgow has a much greater number of stations and Edinburgh possesses only one more. Greenock has the longest bored railway tunnel in Scotland at 1.2 miles (1.9 km) in length - the cut and cover tunnels of the North Clyde Line
North Clyde Line
The North Clyde Line is a suburban railway in West Central Scotland. The route is operated by First ScotRail, on behalf of Transport Scotland...
and Argyle Line
Argyle Line
The Argyle Line is a suburban railway located in West Central Scotland. It connects the Lanarkshire towns of Lanark, Larkhall and Motherwell to West Dunbartonshire via central Glasgow using sub-surface running...
beneath Glasgow City Centre are considerably longer. Located directly under Newton Street in the town, the tunnel allowed for the extension of the railway to Gourock
Gourock
Gourock is a town falling within the Inverclyde council area and formerly forming a burgh of the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It has in the past functioned as a seaside resort on the Firth of Clyde...
.
Greenock is also home to a bus service whose long distance service routes travel regularly to Glasgow, Largs and Dunoon. The Largs to Glasgow corridor is served by 3 different services, the 901, 906 and 908 and all of which service Greenock Town Centre bus station, this provides a bus along this route every 15 minutes for most of the day, Monday to Saturday. They also have a number of local services which cover the majority of Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow.
The 907 offers a very popular service from Glasgow, Buchanan bus station to Dunoon. This service runs every 2 hours and takes in Braehead shopping centre, Port Glasgow town centre, Greenock town centre and Gourock before heading to the ferry terminal at McInroy's Point and boarding the Western Ferry to Hunters Quay and heading into Dunoon itself.
The X7 service provided offers travel from Greenock to Glasgow, although this takes a bit longer than the direct services mentioned before as it covers the Slaemuir area of Port Glasgow before travelling through to Kilmacolm, Bridge of Weir, Houston and Linwood, then joining the motorway to Braehead before heading into Glasgow City Centre.
Greenock is located at the end of the A8 road/M8 motorway which begins in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
. It is also the northern terminus of Euroroute E05 which heads south through England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, ending at the Spanish port and container terminal of Algeciras
Algeciras
Algeciras is a port city in the south of Spain, and is the largest city on the Bay of Gibraltar . Port of Algeciras is one of the largest ports in Europe and in the world in three categories: container,...
.
Culture
Greenock is one of the settings for Alan SharpAlan Sharp
Alan Sharp a novelist and screenwriter. He published two novels in the 1960s, and since then has written the screenplays for about twenty films, mostly produced in the United States....
's 1965 novel A Green Tree in Gedde. It is fictionalised as 'Gantock' by Robin Jenkins in his 1979 novel Fergus Lamont (The Gky shoal
Shoal
Shoal, shoals or shoaling may mean:* Shoal, a sandbank or reef creating shallow water, especially where it forms a hazard to shipping* Shoal draught , of a boat with shallow draught which can pass over some shoals: see Draft...
in the Firth of Clyde
Firth of Clyde
The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...
nearby, just off Dunoon
Dunoon
Dunoon is a resort town situated on the Cowal Peninsula in Argyll, Scotland. It sits on the Firth of Clyde to the south of Holy Loch and to the west of Gourock.-Waterfront:...
). Alasdair Gray
Alasdair Gray
Alasdair Gray is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years...
's 1984 novel 1982, Janine
1982, Janine
1982, Janine is a novel by the Scottish author Alasdair Gray. His second, it was published in 1984, and remains his most controversial work...
is set in a Greenock hotel room. Matthew Fitt
Matthew Fitt
Matthew Fitt is a Lowland Scots/Lallans poet and novelist. He was born in 1968 in Dundee, Scotland. Previously writer-in-residence at Greater Pollok in Glasgow, he is currently National Scots Language Development Officer....
's cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
novel But'n'Ben A-Go-Go
But'n'Ben A-Go-Go
But n Ben A-Go-Go is a science fiction work by Scots writer Matthew Fitt, notable for being entirely in the Scots language. The novel was first published in 2000....
features a submerged Greenock after the effects of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
. Greenock featured in several of the poems of W.S. Graham (evoking his childhood) and Douglas Dunn
Douglas Dunn
Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He currently lives in Scotland.-Background:Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. He was educated at the Scottish School of Librarianship, and worked as a librarian before he started his studies in Hull...
. Greenock is home to the world's first Burns Club
Burns supper
A Burns supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January, sometimes also known as Robert Burns Day or Burns Night , although they may in principle be held at any time of the...
, The Mother Club, which was founded in 1801 by merchants born in Ayrshire
Ayrshire
Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...
, some of whom had known Robert Burns. They held the first Burns Supper on what they thought was his birthday on 29 January 1802, but in 1803 discovered from the Ayr parish records that the correct date was 25 January 1759. The Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
landscape artist John Atkinson Grimshaw
John Atkinson Grimshaw
John Atkinson Grimshaw was a Victorian-era artist, a "remarkable and imaginative painter" known for his city night-scenes and landscapes....
depicted a somewhat idealised Greenock in several of his paintings. The Mclean Museum
Mclean Museum
The Mclean Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery situated in Greenock, Inverclyde. It is the main museum in the Inverclyde area and opened in 1876. Most notably it features an exhibition of items related to James Watt, the Greenock-born inventor, a Mummy Cartonnage from Herakleopolis...
is the largest museum in the Inverclyde area, featuring exhibitions on James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
and a collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts. The Arts Guild Theatre (Greenock)
Arts Guild Theatre (Greenock)
The Arts Guild Theatre is located in Greenock, Scotland. The idea for the theatre was conceived by a group of local drama enthusiasts in 1946. The building contains two theatres, the Wallace Bennett Theatre and the Main Auditorium, and was previously a disused Victorian swimming pool...
is a local venue thay hosts many comedians, musicians and plays every year.
In film
Greenock has featured as the backdrop to several films: the television films Just a Boys' GameJust a Boys' Game
Just a Boys' Game is a 1979 Play for Today written by Peter McDougall and directed by John Mackenzie.It features Frankie Miller, Gregor Fisher, Ken Hutchison and Hector Nicol....
(1979), Down Where The Buffalo Go
Down Where The Buffalo Go
Down Where The Buffalo Go is a 1988 film made for television by BBC Scotland. It stars Harvey Keitel. It was written by Peter McDougall and directed by Ian Knox.-Synopsis:...
(1988) and Down Among the Big Boys (1993) and the cinema films Sweet Sixteen
Sweet Sixteen (2002 film)
Sweet Sixteen is a 2002 film by director Ken Loach. The film tells the story of a working class Scottish teenage boy, Liam , a typical 'ned', who dreams of starting afresh with his mother who is completing a prison term...
(2002) and Dear Frankie
Dear Frankie
Dear Frankie is a 2004 British drama film directed by Shona Auerbach. The screenplay by Andrea Gibb focuses on a young single mother whose love for her son prompts her to perpetuate a deception designed to protect him from the truth about his father....
(2004).
Media
The town has a daily evening newspaper, The Greenock TelegraphGreenock Telegraph
The Greenock Telegraph is a local daily newspaper serving Inverclyde, Scotland.Founded in 1857, it was the first halfpenny daily newspaper in Britain. It was for a time Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette, owing to the massive amount of maritime traffic moving in and out of Greenock's...
. Dating from 1857, it is one of the oldest daily local newspapers in the United Kingdom. Inverclyde FM on line is a community Internet radio
Internet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
station run by volunteers.
Notable Greenockians
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
. He is remembered in the name of the local college, at the library instituted in his memory, by the original James Watt Memorial College building on the site of his birth place in William Street which incorporates a commemorative statue and by a much-loved pub.
Other famous Greenockians include: the composers Hamish MacCunn
Hamish MacCunn
thumb|right|Portrait of MacCunn, 1889, by [[John Pettie]]Hamish MacCunn , Scottish romantic composer, was born in Greenock, the son of a shipowner, and was educated at the Royal College of Music, where his teachers included Sir Hubert Parry and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford.MacCunn's first success...
and William Wallace
William Wallace (Scottish composer)
William Wallace was notable as a Scottish classical composer and writer; he first became an ophthalmic surgeon. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Music in the University of London.-Early life and education:...
, musicians John McGeoch
John McGeoch
John Alexander McGeoch, , was a Scottish guitarist who played with a number of bands of the post-punk era, including Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Visage and Public Image Ltd....
and Thomas Leer
Thomas Leer
Thomas Leer is a British musician who as well as releasing a number of albums and singles in his own right, was also one half of the 1980s electropop band Act...
, poets Denis Devlin
Denis Devlin
Denis Devlin was, along with Samuel Beckett and Brian Coffey, one of the generation of Irish modernist poets to emerge at the end of the 1920s. He was also a career diplomat.-Early life and studies:...
, W. S. Graham
W. S. Graham
William Sydney Graham was a Scottish poet who is often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic group of poets. Graham's poetry was mostly overlooked in his lifetime but, partly due to the support of Harold Pinter, his work has enjoyed a revival in recent years...
and Jean Adam
Jean Adam
Jean Adam was a Scottish poet.-Early years:Born in Greenock into a maritime family, her most famous work is "There's Nae Luck Aboot The Hoose," a tale of a sailor's wife and the safe return of her husband from the sea...
, merchant Matthew Algie
Matthew Algie
Matthew Algie is a company selling coffee, coffee-making machines, tea, and other products such as hot chocolate primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland....
, actors Richard Wilson and Stella Gonet
Stella Gonet
Stella Gonet is a Scottish theatre, film and TV actress.- Career :Gonet trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and is known for playing Beatrice Eliott, one of the two lead roles, in three series of the television drama, The House Of Eliott and Chief Executive Officer Jayne...
, artist William Scott
William Scott (artist)
William Scott was a British artist known for still life and abstract painting. He is the most internationally celebrated of 20th century Ulster painters.-Early life and education:...
, playwrights Bill Bryden
Bill Bryden
William Campbell Rough Bryden CBE is a British stage- and film director and screenwriter.-Biography:...
, Neil Paterson
Neil Paterson (writer)
James Edmund Neil Paterson , known as Neil Paterson, was a Scottish screenwriter.- Early life and football career :...
and Peter McDougall
Peter McDougall
Peter McDougall is a BAFTA and Prix Italia award winning television playwright whose major success was in the 1970s....
, comedian Charles 'Chic' Murray
Charles Murray
Charles Murray is the name of:*Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore *Charles Augustus Murray , British author diplomat*Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore *Charles James Murray , British politician...
, opera singer Hugh Enes Blackmore
Hugh Enes Blackmore
Hugh Enes Blackmore was a British opera and concert singer. Known as the 'Iron-Throated Tenor', he is best remembered for his performances of tenor roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company...
, broadcaster Jimmy Mack
Jimmy Mack (broadcaster)
Jimmy Mack MBE was a Scottish broadcaster, best known for his work on BBC Radio Scotland and Radio Clyde.Jimmy was born in Greenock, Scotland on 26 June 1934. He was educated at Lenzie Academy and Bathgate Academy...
, American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player Lawrence Tynes
Lawrence Tynes
Lawrence James Henry Tynes is an American football placekicker for the New York Giants. He was originally signed by the Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent in 2001.-Early years:...
, Antarctic explorer Henry Robertson 'Birdie' Bowers, and footballer Ryan McWilliams
Ryan McWilliams
Ryan McWilliams is a Scottish footballer, currently playing as a goalkeeper in the Scottish First Division with Ayr United....
People associated with Greenock
Pirate William KiddWilliam Kidd
William "Captain" Kidd was a Scottish sailor remembered for his trial and execution for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean. Some modern historians deem his piratical reputation unjust, as there is evidence that Kidd acted only as a privateer...
claimed on death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
that he was born in Greenock, however subsequent evidence has shown that he was born either in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
or Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
.
Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
' love Mary Campbell (Highland Mary) and her father sailed from Campbeltown
Campbeltown
Campbeltown is a town and former royal burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It lies by Campbeltown Loch on the Kintyre peninsula. Originally known as Kinlochkilkerran , it was renamed in the 17th century as Campbell's Town after Archibald Campbell was granted the site in 1667...
to visit her brother in Greenock early in October 1786. Her brother fell ill with typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
, which she caught while nursing him. She died of typhus on 20 or 21 October 1786, and was buried in the Old West Kirk graveyard. In 1842 increasing interest in their romance led to a monument being erected by public subscription to mark the grave. In 1920 when the church site was needed to expand Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries is a Northern Irish heavy industrial company, specialising in shipbuilding and offshore construction, located in Belfast, Northern Ireland....
’s shipyard, the monument was moved to its present site in Greenock Cemetery, with her remains being transferred to a casket and re-interred with due ceremony. The church itself was moved and rebuilt in its current location at the west end of the Esplanade in 1926.
The novelist John Galt, noted for founding Guelph
Guelph
Guelph is a city in Ontario, Canada.Guelph may also refer to:* Guelph , consisting of the City of Guelph, Ontario* Guelph , as the above* University of Guelph, in the same city...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
in 1827, lived in the town and based some of his work, most notably Annals of the Parish (1821), on Greenock and surrounding towns. He is buried in the Inverkip Street Cemetery. The mother of American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
comedian
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
Jay Leno
Jay Leno
James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an American stand-up comedian and television host.From 1992 to 2009, Leno was the host of NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Beginning in September 2009, Leno started a primetime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. ,...
, Catherine Muir, was born in Greenock and emigrated to the US as a child. The American actress Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
is the daughter of the late Anne Love, a former psychiatric social worker who emigrated from Greenock. The Rev William C. Hewitt
William Hewitt (moderator)
William Currie Hewitt is a minister of the Church of Scotland and is a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ....
(minister at Westburn Parish Church in Greenock), Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
The Moderator of the General Assembly of Church of Scotland is a Minister, Elder or Deacon of the Church of Scotland chosen to "moderate" the annual General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, which is held for a week in Edinburgh every May....
in 2009-2010, is the first serving minister at a church in Greenock to be appointed.
Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
n intelligence officer convicted of the Lockerbie Bombing was incarcerated at Greenock Prison from 2005 until his release on 20 August 2009.
Sports
Greenock Morton F.C.Greenock Morton F.C.
Greenock Morton Football Club are a Scottish professional football club, who currently play in the Scottish Football League First Division. The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs....
are the local senior football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
team who currently play in the Scottish Football League First Division
Scottish Football League First Division
The Irn-Bru Scottish Football League First Division Championship is the highest division of the Scottish Football League and the second highest in the Scottish football league system....
. Founded in 1874 as Morton F.C., they play their home matches at Cappielow
Cappielow
Cappielow is a district of Greenock in Inverclyde, west central Scotland. It is home to Scottish First Division side Greenock Morton F.C. The name Cappielow, taken alone, usually refers to the Cappielow Park stadium, but it can also refer to a small area of housing or the adjoining industrial...
. At lower levels of the game, Greenock Juniors F.C. play in the Stagecoach West of Scotland junior football league.
Greenock hosts a rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
team, Greenock Wanderers RFC
Greenock Wanderers RFC
Greenock Wanderers R.F.C. is a rugby union team based in Greenock, Scotland. It consists of 1st XV, 2nd XV, under 18s, under 17s, under 16s, under 15s, S2 and S1 plus a complete Mini section; a mini rugby tournament is organised every year. Greenock Wanderers was formed in 1873, making it one of...
, and is the home town of the Greenock Cricket Club.
Public Sports and Leisure Facilities
Leisure facilities in Greenock are primarily provided by Inverclyde Leisure. There are several sports facilities in the town and surrounding area managed by Inverclyde Leisure:- Waterfront Leisure Complex
- Greenock Sports Centre
- Lady Octavia Sports Centre
- Boglestone Community Centre and Fitness Gym
- Ravenscraig Sports Centre
- Battery Park Pavilion
- Gourock Fitness Gym
- Gourock Outdoor Swimming Pool
- Birkmyre Park Fitness Gym (Kilmacolm)
As of 2009, there are plans to build a new multi-purpose facility at Rankin Park.
Climate
Temperate
In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of the globe lie between the tropics and the polar circles. The changes in these regions between summer and winter are generally relatively moderate, rather than extreme hot or cold...
maritime having mainly cool summers but with relatively mild winters. Its location means that the heat retentive properties of seawater help keep winter temperatures higher. Additionally, the effect of the Gulf Stream
Gulf Stream
The Gulf Stream, together with its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, is a powerful, warm, and swift Atlantic ocean current that originates at the tip of Florida, and follows the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean...
on the Clyde helps Greenock's average temperature stay approximately one degree above that of eastern coastal towns on the same latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
. Indeed Greenock's latitude (55.94 degrees north with a longitude of 4.75 degrees west) places it at the same latitude as the Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
area. The warming effect of the Gulf Stream however, keeps the winter weather in Greenock much milder than that of Moscow.
Greenock anecdotally has the reputation for having higher than average rainfall (the song The Green Oak Tree comments on this) but this is not statistically true; northwest of Fort William has the highest average rainfall in Scotland. Greenock's location gives long hours of daylight
Daylight
Daylight or the light of day is the combination of all direct and indirect sunlight outdoors during the daytime. This includes direct sunlight, diffuse sky radiation, and both of these reflected from the Earth and terrestrial objects. Sunlight scattered or reflected from objects in outer space is...
in midsummer
Midsummer
Midsummer may simply refer to the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, but more often refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place on a day between June 21 and June 24, and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different...
with the opposite true in midwinter. On the longest day, 21 June, the sun rises at 04:31 and sets at 22:07. In midwinter, 21 December, the sun rises at 08:46 and sets at 15:44.
Twin cities
Greenock's twin citiesTown twinning
Twin towns and sister cities are two of many terms used to describe the cooperative agreements between towns, cities, and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties.- Terminology :...
are:
Veulettes-sur-Mer
Veulettes-sur-Mer
Veulettes-sur-Mer is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:A tourism and farming village situated on the coast of the English Channel in the Pays de Caux, some southwest of Dieppe at the junction of the D79 and the D271...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Cany-Barville
Cany-Barville
Cany-Barville is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France.-Geography:A farming and light industrial town situated by the banks of the river Durdent in the Pays de Caux, some southwest of Dieppe, at the junction of the D925, D10 and the D268...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
External links
- The Greenock Telegraph
- Greenock Wanderers RFC
- Greenock Morton FC
- Greenock Cricket Club
- James Watt College
- Inverclyde Views
- James Watt Dock Redevelopment Website
- James Watt Dock
- artisticinverclyde
- Inverclyde Athletics Club
- Met Office Greenock Weather Forecast
Further reading
- Monteith, J (2004) Old Greenock
- Snoddy, TG (1937) Round About Greenock
- Weir, D (1827, r. 2004) History of the Town of Greenock