Reflecting Pool, Govan

Yesterday's post about the wet dock was a little accidental - I'd been meaning to use the (water-filled) dry dock as a reflecting pool for the Science Tower at sunset. Fortunately I'd given myself enough time to shoot around the wet dock before the sun went all the way down. These are the pictures I'd actually gone there for. Some cloud in the sky would've been nice, but it was almost completely empty. Ah well, can't fight nature. Not very successfully.

Govan Fitting-Out Basin

Just downstream of the dry docks at Govan is a wet dock which was used as a fitting-out basin. (New ships would be constructed in a dry dock until they were complete enough to be launched; other work on the ship, such as interior fittings, could then be done in a wet dock).

Whilst I've been photographing around the dry docks over the last few weeks I've not been paying much attention to the area around the wet dock. But when I went down there on Friday evening, contractors had almost completed clearing all the trees from the wet dock area. And immediately I regretted not having put more effort into documenting that part of the site.

So this is just a splurge of the photos that I have taken of the wet dock area without a whole lot of commentary.

Mid-November 2014: lots of vegetation around the wet dock basin.

Remains of buildings

More building remains.

This used to be a fording point of the river; Highlanders would bring their cattle down the droving roads and cross the Clyde here to come ashore at Govan for market.

Cobbles over the old drovers road route; trees starting to be cleared.

Trees cleared at the fording point.

The wet dock with all trees cleared.

Looking in to the wet dock from the entrance, downstream side.

Valves

I've been back to the Govan Graving Docks a few times over the last couple of weeks. Really such a fascinating place.

More changes are happening at the west end of the site with lots of trees being cleared earlier this week along the side of the wet dock and along the river bank between the wet dock and the pump house. I do wonder if bigger changes are imminent; I do worry that the site might disappear under a construction boot in the near future.

Anyway, I'll try to do a few small, themed posts over the next few days. This one - some of the rusted "street furniture" at the gate to the docks; discharge pumps and scuttle valves. Presumably the controls for pumping the water out of, and allowing the water to flood back into, the dry docks.

Why, you might legitimately ask, am I documenting such boring stuff? Partly because it's outside my everyday experience and so is fascinating to me, and partly because I don't see anyone else documenting it. Feel free to not look :-)