Former fuel depot

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 17 Nov 2011

About eighteen large fuel tanks once stood in this area, but they are now represented only by circular pools. This area of waste ground, formerly part of the fuel depot, is bounded on one side by the River Clyde, and on the other by, successively, a path (Image), a Image, and the Image (the path, the dismantled line and the canal run closely parallel to one another, as the map indicates). [On a subsequent visit, when I took my other photographs of the site, the lighting was better (though only slightly, with a very low winter sun), but a prolonged period of heavy rain had caused many of these pools to become connected, so that they did not have the circular form shown here.] The Erskine Bridge is in the background, on the right; compare Image For other structures in the area, see Image, Image, and Image The depot originally included a large area on the other side of the Forth and Clyde Canal; those other parts have been replaced by housing, but the fuel tanks lay within an area extending from Old Dalnottar Road to Dalnottar Cemetery. Together with the parts nearer the River Clyde, shown here, there were upwards of 70 large fuel tanks in total. In his book "The Clydebank Blitz" (1974), I.M.M.MacPhail mentions the damage sustained by the site as a whole in March of 1941: "three of the 70-80 Admiralty oil tanks at Dalnottar and Old Kilpatrick were bombed by the Luftwaffe and one of them set on fire". That tank was still burning on the second night of the Blitz, providing an easy target: ten more tanks were set on fire, eight of them at Dalnottar (i.e., the northern parts of the depot, now built over), the other two at Old Kilpatrick (i.e., this area, nearer the Clyde). The Secret Scotland page on the depot (see the end-note for the link) has many more photographs of this area. In addition, a Canmore link can be found there; Canmore has older aerial photographs of the site. See also Chris Allen's older Geograph images: Image, Image

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