Before the year 1777, the town of Grangemouth did not exist. It was built to serve the needs of the many goods barges using the new Forth & Clyde Canal. Barges full of various goods from Europe were unloaded from ships in the harbour and transferred to barges to be sent along the canal and then distributed all over the West of Scotland. These same barges were then filled with coal from pits, and other goods, and sent east back along the canal to Grangemouth, transferred to ships, and exported to the European mainland.

The old town of Grangemouth grew rapidly to house, feed and water the many employees of the many industries that grew along this end of the canal and on either side of the canal basin and harbour. The town had everything you would associate with a regular town, like a post office, school, police station, town hall, burgh court, and any number of inns, shops, pubs and hotels.

Today, there is absolutely nothing left of old Grangemouth; no buildings, no streets, just an abandoned derelict dock that once sat close to the heart of this once bustling town.

In many ways the decline in use of the canal started as soon as the railways appeared in the mid-nineteenth century. Why would you export your goods on a slow barge pulled by a horse when they could be sent off far quicker on a steam train?

By the mid-twentieth century use of the canal for moving goods to and fro had declined to the extent where the canal was effectively no longer in use, and the short section at the Grangemouth end was filled in. But all the while the town of Grangemouth continued to grow and expand; it expanded to the east of the old town, with employment for many in the railway goods yards and new docks.

Over a few decades after this end of the canal was filled in, the buildings and whole streets in the old town of Grangemouth were abandoned, became derelict, and were pulled down. The whole town was erased, and today you would never know that right here was a bustling town that was at the very core of Scotland's Industrial Revolution.

See also...

History of Grangemouth