Day 235 - Forth & Clyde Canal: Bowling to Stockingfield Junction

Our first day of our cross-country Scotland canal walk began along the banks of the Clyde River as it widens out toward the Irish Sea west of Glasgow.  It's here that the first lock is located in what is referred to as Bowling Harbour.  Bowling is a village whose history is rooted in the ship building and ship repairing industries.

That's me standing at the sea lock at Bowling on the
Clyde River with the Erskine Bridge in the background

When the canal was first opened in 1790, this village became an integral part of the shipping of goods to and from Glasgow. Ironically, the village also lies at the western terminus of the Antonine Wall, which runs more or less along the same route our canal walk will take us.  I say "ironically" because the last time Angela and I traversed from one coast to the other it was to walk the Hadrian's Wall in the north of England.  Well, the Antonine Wall was built by the Romans in 142 AD, approximately 20 years after Hadrian's Wall, and it marks the northern most extent of the Roman Empire! It's not as grand as Hadrian's, but we will be able to see nearby historic remnants of it as we walk along the canals this week. 

Ange's cool retro picture of the Bowling Harbour

Our entire journey will involve this section of the Forth & Clyde Canal until Falkirk, and then we join the Union Canal through to Edinburgh, a total distance of approximately 100 kilometres. We're going to take the next 6 days to accomplish that, but given we walk along the towpaths on the canal, it will be pretty flat most of the way, except where we go up and down by the various locks.

One of the many locks at the beginning of the canal walk

The Forth & Clyde canal was closed in 1963 and remained abandoned until about the year 2000 when a canal trust was set up to restore much of it. We began our walk inland from Bowling through the western reaches of Glasgow. The industrial lands that were located adjacent to the canal once were the home of factories but they no longer exist, replaced by housing or just open areas of undeveloped brownfield sites (typically just fenced in areas with bricks scattered around). 

Today's section of our walk was approximately 16 kilometers and ended up in the northern suburbs of Glasgow, at what is known as the Stockingfield Junction (the canal splits into two sections, with one heading east toward Falkirk and the other travelling south into the centre of Glasgow to what was known as Port Dundas -- built to appease Glasgow merchants who were worried that the east-west main canal to the north would take business away from them).

Along the way one can take away
fish and chips!

The first few kilometres of the canal were also where most of the locks were found as it made its way up from the Clyde River. At one point the canal runs through the middle of a shopping area with malls on both sides of the canals and a fish and chip shop shaped like a boat where you can take away from both the landward and canalward sides. (Is "canalward" even a word?) Too early for us to stop for a bite unfortunately!

The Kelvin Aquaduct

Mary Hill Locks and swing
bridge - 5 locks in total

There were a number of really cool innovations in canal building, a testament to Scottish engineering. Two of them are really worth noting. The first one was encountered at Dalmuir and is where a section of the canal is built to allow the water level to drop a canal boat down to a level that allows it to move under a roadway and then when on the other side fills back up to bring the boat back up to the level of the water in the canal on the other side.  The second is the Kelvin Aquaduct where the canal crosses over the Kelvin River at a height of approximately 70 feet with an 8-foot-deep canal section that runs for approximately 400 feet in length. In its day, it was the longest of its kind.

After this point the canal turns abruptly at about a 90-degree angle and makes its way toward the Stockingfield Junction. We passed the Maryhill locks and the Maryhill aquaduct and came to the fork in the canal. This was the termination point of today's hike and although we had another kilometre to go uphill to the closest rail station at Gillshochill (try and pronounce that without knowing how to do it - I couldn't get it right no matter how many times I repeated it to the train guard - but it is pronounced Gill-shook-hill) we were ready to head back to the hotel and a shower -- because believe it or not it was another sunny and warm day in Scotland!

Ale of the Day: Glasgow Red, Shilling Brewing Co., Glasgow