A Brief History of the Scottish Lowland Canals

The story of the Scottish Lowland canals began for real in 1768 when, after much argument about the route, building work began on the Forth and Clyde Canal. It was to be a "Great Canal" across Scotland, capable of taking sea-going vessels, but also with a branch leading into Glasgow city centre. John Smeaton was the chief engineer. Cutting began at the eastern end of the canal where it met the Forth at Grangemouth.

In 1773, the canal reached Kirkintilloch and was first filled with water. By 1775 it had reached Stockingfield (where the junction of the Glasgow Branch and the main line is today), and two years later it stopped at Hamiltonhill. The money had run out.

The canal out to the east coast gave Glasgow a huge advantage commercially, as they already had the River Clyde going out to the west coast. Fortunately for the rest of Scotland, though, in 1785 money from the forfeited Jacobite Estates was used to finance the completion of the canal, and in 1790 it opened all the way from Grangemouth on the east coast to Bowling on the west.

Unlike the English narrow canals, the Forth and Clyde was designed to take sea-going ships. This necessitated having massive locks and aqueducts (for the time) and all the bridges had to open to allow vessels with masts through. The canal was widely used to transport many different cargoes. Fishing boats used it to sail from one coast to another, avoiding the long and dangerous journey round the north of Scotland. Canalside industries prospered with their new transport system. Boats were built at many places along the canal, including Tophill in Falkirk, and Kirkintilloch, including the famous Clyde Puffers. In the canal's later years, it was even used by pleasure steamers, which ran from Glasgow to Craigmarloch, an attractive spot just east of Kilsyth.

The lowland canal system was extended in 1793 by the building of the Monkland Canal, which joined the Forth and Clyde at Port Dundas in Glasgow. Originally built just to break the coal monopoly in Glasgow, this seemingly insignificant little canal quickly became one of the busiest in Britain! It was a lot smaller than the Forth and Clyde from an engineering point of view, though, and could only take small barges, not ships.

But Glasgow wasn't the only town with a coal monopoly. Edinburgh also had a transport problem, and another canal was the suggested solution. Canals from Edinburgh to the Monklands were proposed, but rejected on the grounds of cost. Suggestions were even made for a canal from Leith right across to the Clyde in direct competition with the Forth and Clyde Canal.

Eventually Hugh Baird, a little-known Forth and Clyde Canal engineer, proposed a barge canal from central Edinburgh to Falkirk, joining the Forth and Clyde Canal at Lock 16, Camelon. This was not a popular idea in Leith (or, indeed, in Edinburgh) but it won the support of the great engineer Thomas Telford, and it was this Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal which was eventually built.

The Union Canal was completed incredibly quickly, taking only four years from 1818 to 1822, despite of course being built entirely by hand. This was a tribute to Baird's clever design, in that the canal was all on one level and required no locks, an idea which also meant that the canal could be navigated from end to end with hardly any delays.

The Union Canal succeeded in breaking the Edinburgh coal monopoly, as cheap coal flooded in from pits beside the waterway (especially at Redding, near Falkirk). And with a canal route now in place all the way from Glasgow to Edinburgh, a passenger service between the two cities was established. The fast boats which carried the passengers were called Swifts, and had priority over other craft to the extent that they were allowed to slash the tow ropes of any barge that got in their way!

But after only twenty years of the Union Canal operating, the Edinburgh to Glasgow Railway was opened and the canals' once busy passenger service was effectively finished. All three canals suffered a serious decline in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the railways gradually took away their industrial traffic as well. In 1922 the Union Canal's main terminal basins near Lothian Road were no longer required and were filled in. Eleven years later the locks and basins linking the Union and Forth and Clyde canals in Falkirk also disappeared. Commercial traffic on the Union Canal ceased in 1937, the other two more successful canals also falling into disuse at around the same time.

There was some recreational use of the canals in the early 20th century, but sadly not enough to save them from their inevitable closure. The Monkland was the first to go in the 1950s, followed by the Forth and Clyde in 1963 and the Union in 1965.

During the 60s and early 70s, much of the lowland canal system was regretably destroyed. The Monkland Canal suffered most. It was largely obliterated by the M8 being built along its line for several miles, and another section in Coatbridge filled in for, as far as I can make out, no particular reason.

The Forth and Clyde Canal's opening bridges were becoming bottle necks on the rapidly developing road transport system, and the main reason for its closure was so that new roads (especially the A80) could be built across it without having to worry about maintaining canal navigation standards. Public fears (although hysteria would probably be a more accurate word) about safety were the other factor in the destruction of one of Scotland's greatest feats of civil engineering. Sections were shallowed or infilled completely to prevent children falling in and drowning. But parodoxically, the lowering of the canal's water level to about 3ft below the bank made the remaining sections of canal far more dangerous, and all just to reduce maintenance costs and save money!

The Union Canal was also badly vandalised by the authorities. Some of its narrow, stone arched bridges were also replaced by culverts, and a few new roads were built straight across it at water level (including the M8). A long section through the new housing estate at Wester Hailes was infilled, again because of fears about safety (although by this time the canal was so silted up there could barely have been enough depth of water in it to drown a mouse).

But over the last three decades, much has been done to reverse this damage. Initially it was just canal enthusiasts fighting to preserve what they could, but the tide has turned and the canal restoration plans have the support of the vast majority of the people and organisations in Central Scotland. Their potential now officially recognised, the canals are no longer under threat from new developments, and some of the "developments" of the 60s and 70s have already been removed. Long sections of the Union and Forth and Clyde Canals are open for navigation once again, and even on the Monkland Canal some work has been carried out to salvage bits of the waterway. The Millennium Link project should see the Edinburgh to Glasgow and coast to coast routes fully navigable within the next few years.

If you would like to find out more about the history of the canals, there are many good books on the subject. See Recommended Reading for more details.

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