Braehead Works

Location type

Works

Name and dates

Braehead Works

Description

This works was on the south bank of the River Clyde opposite the Blythswood Shipbuilding Yard. It was also owned by Blythswood Shipbuilding Co Ltd. It was a ship repair and fitting out site. There was a long frontage to the river, the Braehead Repair Berthage, about 1,600 ft long. This was stone built, sloping and with mooring posts and several timber landing stages. The quay was set back from the river, vessels here would not impact on Clyde navigation. In the south east of the site were works buildings.

The company also diversified, building mobile houses and hotel annexes, and by the 1960s was a fabrication site for steel construction of special mooring buoys, storage tanks, condensers etc.

The site appears to have been out of use by the time the company folded. It was taken over by Yarrows. Braehead Power Station was built on the western part of the works site (a rather straggling railway existed around the time of construction). To serve the power station, the southern part of the site was rail served by a loop off the Renfrew Harbour branch of the Glasgow and Renfrew District Railway.

The site was developed on the grounds of the former Elderslie House. Interestingly despite the Blythswood company's main shipyard being on a very constrained site they did not develop this site for ship building berths or slips.

Tags

Ship repair Fitting out