IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Rock Place, DUMBARTON, G82 1DB

From Castle Street adjacent to the football stadium.

Construction of these factory buildings began in 1937, as a result of a business partnership between Sir Maurice Denny, Managing Director of the Dumbarton firm Denny Shipbuilders, and Robert Blackburn, of Yorkshire's Blackburn Aeroplane and Motor Company. The site on which the factory stood was called Barge Park; completed machines would be taken across the River Clyde by barge to Abbotsinch airfield. Aircraft built here included the Blackburn Shark B6 Mark III (a torpedo/spotter/reconnaissance biplane, assembled from components manufactured in Yorkshire), the Short Sunderland (a flying boat patrol bomber, built entirely at this site), and many others. By early 1961, the factory had closed. As the photo shows, the factory buildings survived rather longer, becoming part of a bottling plant. However, they have now been demolished; see Image For a detailed history of the factory, and of the circumstances surrounding its creation, and for details of the aircraft that were produced here, the best source of information is the booklet "The Blackburn: Dumbarton's Aircraft Factory" (1996) by Alan M. Sherry. The photograph was taken from one of the batteries of Dumbarton Castle. For views of the buildings from the road beside them, see Image and Image

For a view of the factory buildings that once stood here, see Image For the new houses visible on the left, see Image

The large buildings on the right had once been those of the Blackburn Aircraft Factory, though they were being used by Allied Distillers when this picture was taken: they are now gone. For a better look at the buildings, on the same day, see Image, taken from further along the road, alongside the building; that item also features some comments about the area to the left (west) of the road, where a football stadium is located. A later view along the same road in the opposite direction also shows the old factory buildings: Image Views from above (more specifically, from Dumbarton Rock) show the road before and after those buildings were removed: Image (before) and Image (after). In the later picture, some new housing had also appeared at the far left, on the other side of the road: for that development, see Image

This wide-angle view is intended to show developments around Castle Road. To its west (left) are the grounds of Image Behind the stadium is the recent housing that makes up the Castle Quay development: Image The other side (east) of the road was formerly the site of the Blackburn Aircraft Factory, later used by Allied Distillers: Image The factories shown there were later demolished. By the time the present picture was taken, a new housing development was beginning on that site: Image (see http://www.geograph.org.uk/snippet/15948 for related pictures). Further to the right is Image

Looking south to the Rock.

The road ends at the castle entrance, a little behind the photographer. A large new housing development is currently under construction.

On the other side of the burn, but obscured by trees, Image was taking shape.

This small bridge over Image is part of the Dumbarton Foreshore Walk. Below this point, the burn crosses the beach and empties into the Clyde: Image See Image for a view from the other side.

The footbridge, marked on the 1:25000 map, is shown from the other side in Image The burn is shown here emptying into the Clyde.