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Vale Of Leven Industrial Estate, DUMBARTON, G82 3PD

Strathleven Industrial Estate was built in the early 1950's and brought greater prosperity to the Vale of Leven. Major employers included Burroughs Adding Machine Company, Westclox, Wisemens and Polaroid manufacturing plants that at one time employed thousands of people. They all gradually closed as the new technologies evolved which made many of their products obsolete. Polaroid still have a presence there and most of the large Factories have been split into smaller Units. The Factory above is typical of the original estate built in the early fities and this one was part of the Westclox Packing Department which shipped out the famous Big Ben Alarm Clock to all parts of the world.

Several of the smaller businesses in the industrial estate are clustered around this area.

This one has a George VI Royal Cipher. It therefore dates from between 1948, when the industrial estate was built, and 1952, when George VI died.

The building in the foreground is currently used by Thermaseal. For earlier uses, and for the history of the estate, see Image

Other than from the air, this is probably the best place from which to get a view of the whole estate. See http://www.geograph.org.uk/tagged/place:Vale+of+Leven+Industrial+Estate for related images. In the left-hand half of the image, the arc of housing immediately behind the industrial estate is the Strathleven Housing Estate. Behind that, further up the hill, is the Beechwood and Wheatcroft Estate, extending out like an arm from Braehead and Redburn, part of which can be seen at the far left. A little right of centre, Image can be seen standing alone. Two outlying buildings on the right are a Image (with Image visible behind it) and a Image

The benches and gravel are recent; this space had all been grassy. The view is from beside a pillar box: Image The benches and the surrounding grass were later cleared away: Image Note a minor but strange error on large-scale mapping, where a small semicircular body of water is shown on the other side of the road in the background (Burroughs Way). In fact, there is a small brick structure there: Image / Image Such errors occasionally crept in when the paper maps were converted to a digital format, and a line or an area was misinterpreted; compare Image

The benches that were set up here nearly three years earlier are gone: Image

The building with the lorry trailers in front (their only purpose seems to be to block the building's windows) was formerly used by Turnkey Ltd. The lorries were later replaced with a new structure: Image The adjacent building, with the porch-like projection in front, is used by Thermaseal: Image See also Image, where further details of the history of the estate can be found. In the present photograph, the most distant building visible on the same side of the road is used by Goal Zone Ltd.

Ahead, to the left of the road, is a small brick structure with Image Directly across the road from it is a flagstaff that has been here for decades; it was probably set up when the inscriptions were. Nearer, on the left, is a sign indicating that the area to the left of the road is part of "Plot 3", acquired by the local council for redevelopment.