At the same time as the Forth and Clyde
canal was reviving the ancient settlement of Camelon, it was bringing to birth a
completely new community at the mouth of the Carron. Reporting in 1797 the Minister of
Falkirk described the initiative of Sir Lawrence Dundas regarding the 'propriety of
building a village and quay' at the east end of the canal:
The place which lie fixed upon for this
purpose was the angle which is formed by the junction of the river Carron and the canal.
They were begun to be built in the year 1777; the village is now of considerable extent
and is called Grangemouth.
At first the new community was called Sealock
but later it became Grange Burn Mouth from the proximity of a stream of that name which at
that time meandered over the flat lands to join the Carron close to the village.
Conversion to Grangemouth followed in the 1780s by which time it had a population of
nearly four hundred. The provision of harbour facilities and the direct link to the
rapidly expanding town of Glasgow via the canal brought swift success to the port and it
soon displaced Carronshore as the principal landing place on the river. Trading vessels
from all over Europe landed cargoes of grain, flax, hemp, iron and timber which were
transferred in the new basins to canal lighters which carried them to factories and farms
across the breadth of Scotland. In return went the coal of Lanarkshire as well as
manufactured goods from foundry and mill and even the products of the new American states.
In 1810 the village had a Custom's House of its own at last and no longer had to pay
duties to its ancient rival Bo'ness a few miles away along the river Forth. As early as
the 1790s canal boats were being built in the village including, of course, the Charlotte
Dundas, from Alexander Hart's yard. The patron provided a dry-dock in 1811 and the
business expanded in line with the remarkable growth of the port itself.
By the late 1830s, demand had reached record
levels with 750 vessels each year arriving and leaving and over 3,000 passing through to
the canal. Facilities were inadequate and a great improvement scheme was started involving
the re-direction of the Grange burn to take it away from the harbour area to a new meeting
with the river a mile away to the east. A new dock, known today as the 'old dock' was
built, the river Carron deepened and the major timber basin enlarged. This work was
completed by '200 artificers and labourers' in 1843 by which time the population of the
village had grown to over 1,500. Even more rapid growth followed the new developments and,
less than twenty years later, yet another, the Junction Dock, was added. These additions
firmly established Grangemouth as Scotland's principal timber import centre and soon the
storage, saw-milling and distribution of redwoods and pines from the Baltic and Canada
became Grangemouth's most important activity and the foundation of much of its prosperity.
More than a century on and the wood yards of the port area remain of key importance to the
economic wellbeing of the town with new investment reversing some of the decline of recent
years.
Long before these mid century developments
the people of the small village of Grangemouth had, like their opposite numbers in
Camelon, petitioned their Dundas patrons regarding the two special needs of every aspiring
Scottish community of the period, namely a church and a school. As early as 1817 over
£750 was collected towards the provision of a church but nearly twenty years passed
before a building was erected with the support of the Presbytery, the Minister of Falkirk
and Lord Dundas, grandson of the founder. In 1837 he, 'from due regard for the spiritual
instruction of the district, erected a substantial and commodious church' and, when the
Minister and the majority of the congregation left the established church six years later
to join the new Free Church the patron, by this time Earl of Zetland, allowed the building
to be transferred to the new church since it had never been legally conveyed to the Church
of Scotland. This caused a mighty ecclesiastical and legal furore but when the dust
settled it was still with the Free Church, possibly their first building in Scotland? The
newly established Parish reverted to Falkirk's control and it was not until the 1860s that
the established church had a building in the parish - the short lived building at Charing
Cross. Education was another of the priorities and here we are told that as early as 1797
'Lord Dundas gives to a schoolmaster in Grangemouth, a house to dwell in, a schoolroom and
5 pounds a year'. In 1827 this was replaced by a new building with schoolrooms for both
boys and girls, a library, houses for the teachers and 'extensive playgrounds' which makes
it quite a contrast to the dingy overcrowded buildings serving the more populous parts of
the district. Again it was personal patronage of the Dundas family which ensured that the
village was ahead of their rivals. This was very much in keeping with their whole approach
to the design and construction of Grangemouth itself which was laid out quite deliberately
in a grid pattern with streets forty feet wide and substantial dwellings built in regular
fashion. The same principles were applied when the inevitable expansion of the town
followed the dock extensions in the mid century. By then Grangemouth had spilled out over
the canal and a whole new town was emerging on the unoccupied land to the east. But there
was to be no uncontrolled sprawl as so often happened elsewhere. Careful planning again
ensured that the streets were wide and well laid out and that they were filled with houses
of quality each with its own garden. For 1861 this was astonishingly far-sighted and the
splendour of Grangemouth's 'new town' today owes much to the vision and, of course, the
massive wealth of the founding fathers. At a time when it is fashionable and frequently
justifiable to pillory the wealthy patrons of the Victorian era and earlier for their
limited concern for the wellbeing of their communities it is refreshing to report such an
outstanding example of good sense and genuine community spirit. In 1872 responsibility for
municipal affairs passed from the Dundas family to a new burgh council and soon the marks
of civic pride began appearing all over the prosperous town. A magnificent public park was
opened in 1882 named after the Earl of Zetland and two years later he laid the foundation
stone of the new Town Hall. In 1888 the handsome new Victoria Public Library was erected
with the help of Andrew Carnegie's vast fortune.
Fine new churches of various denominations,
public buildings and schools graced the elegant streets with Bo'ness Road, Charing Cross,
Abbots Road, Talbot Street, and Ronaldshay Crescent among the most attractive. Here the
well-to-do merchants and traders built high quality homes while ensuring that the working
population in Marshall and Lumley Street were better served than their opposite numbers
elsewhere. By the turn of the century the population was over 8000 and by then the large
Carron Dock was in operation and in 1906 facilities were further improved by the opening
of the Grange Dock. By then a new factor had emerged in the industrial expansion of the
town. In 1897 the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society established a large factory in
the town making soap and glycerine. It was Grangemouth's first chemical works and was
followed in 1919 by James Morton's pioneering Scottish Dyes which eventually became part
of the ICI's dyestuffs division in 1928. From the huge factory which developed near the
Earl of Zetland's long demolished Kerse House, that is at the Earl's Gates, came a
succession of famous and money earning dyes, like the Caledon blues and Monastral greens,
which secured the future for many a Grangemouth family. Four years before that Scottish
Oils had opened the first Grangemouth plant to refine crude oil from the Persian Gulf and
from these small beginnings the massive Grangemouth petro-chemical complex has grown to
dominate all other activities in the area. It would be impossible to do justice in the
space available to this particular part of Grangemouth's fascinating story; suffice to say
that what became the British Petroleum refinery, processing oil brought in the through the
overland pipeline from the tanker terminal at Finnart on Loch Long, attracted an array of
giant chemical companies to the area anxious to convert the feedstock from the BP into the
products demanded by modern societies all over the world. Since the mid 1970s the crude
oil has come from deep below the waters of the North Sea and there have been a number of
major new developments in the processing and manufacturing facilities.
In many ways the Refinery is the Carron of
the modern era. In its scale it dwarfs all other enterprises; it is crucial to the economy
not only of the district but of the whole country; it is at the forefront of new
technology and, of course, its flare stacks light the night sky for miles around like
those famous blast furnaces of two centuries ago. And like Carron it has inspired a steady
growth in population with the inevitable demands for new housing and other facilities.
Much of the empty land to the south and east of the 'new town' has disappeared under
massive housing schemes and what almost amounts to a third town has grown tip on the site
all to briefly occupied by what was to have been a major airport in the Bowhouse area.
It was in February 1939 that Scottish Aviation announced
their plans to provide central Scotland with what would be the largest airport in the
country. Over 500 acres of land were secured and only five months later Grangemouth
Aerodrome was officially opened by Air Marshall Viscount Trenchard. During the war
Grangemouth was a centre for the training of fighter pilots and many young men, from
Britain and all parts of the Commonwealth as well as Poland and Czechoslovakia, died while
practising the daring manoeuvres demanded in those incredible times. Most are buried in a
special part of Grandsable Cemetery, a tangible reminder of the high price we ask our
children to pay when the world we have made goes awry. After the war ideas on civil
aviation changed and the great plan was gradually abandoned leaving nothing now but two
hanger buildings used as warehouses. Next time you drive down Inchyra Road remember that
you follow in the direct path of many a Spitfire and Hurricane, and that it could so
easily have been a Boeing 727 or even a Concorde. Be grateful for small mercies! Now the
grass and runways have all but vanished and the chemical industry has expanded to fill the
space along with new houses, shops and recreational facilities like the fine sports
stadium.
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