Dumbarton, Town and Castle
"DUMBARTON, town, castle, and parish in Dumbartonshire. The town stands
on low flat ground, bisected by the river Leven, 3/4 mile from the Clyde, and 15 1/2
miles north-west-by-west of Glasgow; covers the site of the Roman naval station
Theodosia, and the site of a Culdee cell; shared in
the history of Dumbarton Castle as the royal seat of the kingdom of Cumbria or
Strathclyde; is now a seaport, a royal and parliamentary burgh, and they political
capital of Dumbartonshire; unites with Port Glasgow, Renfrew, Rutherglen, and
Kilmarnock in sending a member to Parliament; comprises a main
body on the left bank of the Leven, and two suburbs, old and new, on the right bank;
was designed in 1876 to undergo extensive improvements in its streets and harbour,
and in 1881 to acquire an eastern suburb with house accommodation for about 2000
families; was long distinguished for glass manufacture,
and is much more distinguished now for shipbuilding; publishes 2 weekly newspapers;
and has a head post office with money order and telegraph departments, a railway
station, 3 banking offices, 2 hotels, a fine town hall of 1865, a long costly pier
of 1874-75, a steepled Established church of 1810, a
handsome Free church of 1878, another Free church, 2 United Presbyterian churches,
an elegant Episcopalian church of 1873. Evangelical Union, Baptist, Wesleyan, and
Roman Catholic churches, a Mechanics' Institute, and 7 public schools with
accommodation for 1961 scholars. Real property in 188-81, £43,842.
Pop. 13,786."
"The castle stands at left side of the Leven's influx to the Clyde; is
an isolated, precipitous, bi forked rock, about a mile in firth at the base, and 260
feet high, partially edificed with ramparts and houses; was a stronghold probably of
the Romans, and certainly of the Romanized Strathclyde
Caledonians; has been a royal fort from commencement of the Scoto-Saxon monarchy
till the present time; figured much and often in national affairs till final fall of
Queen Mary; was bereft of most of its military value by the invention of modern
artillery; and, but for a stipulation at the national
union for its being permanently maintained, might have long ago been entirely
relinquished as a fort."
[From The Gazetteer of Scotland, by Rev. John Wilson, 1882.]
Page produced by Louise Smith.
Last updated: 15th March 2002, 05:13
GMT
