The former site of Dalreoch Toll
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The former site of Dalreoch Toll by Lairich Rig as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 18 Feb 2013
The picture shows the junction of Cardross Road / Glasgow Road (in the foreground) and Renton Road (background, right). The building at the centre of the picture is more or less on the site of Dalreoch Toll. The tollhouse was still standing at the start of the twentieth century, although there had been no tolls on public roads since 1883 [see page 87 of I M M MacPhail's "Dumbarton through the Centuries" (1972)]. The tollhouse is the squat building that can be seen in the foreground of Alexander Kellock Brown's painting "Dumbarton in Glassmaking Days", shown at http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/dumbarton-in-glassmaking-days-194878 (at ArtUK). It can also been seen in two very similar paintings by I Clark: see http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/dumbarton-in-glassmaking-days-194883 (also at ArtUK). These paintings also show the three cones of the glassworks (see Image), Image, and Image Examination of the 25-inch OS map published in 1919 shows tramlines passing Dalreoch Toll (the tollhouse was then still standing). If the tramlines were still present today, they would be seen entering this photograph where the cars are stopped, and they would leave the picture at the lower right corner. Followed north from here, the line passed Image, already disused by then, on the way to Renton. Followed in the opposite direction, the line passed through the West Bridgend area of Dumbarton, crossed Image, and then followed the town's High Street. In the vicinity of Image, the line divided, with one branch continuing along Image (the lines visible in that picture are unrelated to the trams), and the other turning off to follow Church Street (Image) and then Strathleven Place. Further information about these routes, and about the history of trams in this area, can be found in the booklet "Dumbarton's Trams and Buses" (A W Brotchie and R L Grieves, 1985). Compare Image, which had also been the site of one of the burgh's tollhouses, and which was also the end-point of one of the town's tramlines.