Scottish Gaelic: Grianaig, pronounced [kɾʲiənɛkʲ]) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It forms part of a contiguous urban area with Gourock to the west and Port Glasgow to the east.
Greenock’s population was recorded as being 45,467 in the 2001 census, a decrease from about 78,000 in 1966. It lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the “Tail of the Bank” where the River Clyde expands into the Firth of Clyde.
In 1827 Loch Thom was constructed as a reservoir with The Cut aqueduct, bringing water to power industry.
Greenock Central railway station at Cathcart Street opened in 1841, for the first time providing a fast route from Glasgow to the coast linking up with Clyde steamer services. The provision of this new line eliminated the necessity of taking the steamer all the way down river from Glasgow. In 1869 the Caledonian Railway was bypassed by the rival Glasgow and South Western Railway which opened a station on the waterfront at Princes Pier. To regain custom, the Caledonian Railway extended (what is now known as the Inverclyde Line) the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway west to Gourock; this line was built to run inland through deep cuttings and tunnels to avoid disturbance to the villas of Greenock’s west end. The Gourock line opened in 1889.
The Greenock Custom House building was designed by William Burn in 1818 and is considered by many[specify] to be the finest in Britain. It underwent extensive refurbishment which was completed in 1989 and, until closure of the building in 2010, housed a customs and excise museum which was open to the public. In June 2008 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) announced that the building would close in 2011 as part of a rationalisation project with any jobs being transferred to offices in Glasgow. In response, staff, their union PCS and local politicians organised a campaign to oppose HMRCs plans. Despite this widespread opposition HMRC announced in December 2008 that the closure would definitely go ahead. In the event, the building closed ahead of schedule in August 2010 and now lies empty.
The Municipal Buildings with the Victoria Tower and “Cowan’s Corner”, and the Mid Kirk spire of 1781 to the left.
Greenock’s increasing importance and wealth was manifested in the construction of the Italianate Municipal Buildings, whose Victoria Tower, completed in 1886, stands 245 feet (75 m) tall. Begun five years previously in a competition won by architects H. & D. Barclay, it exceeds the height of the tower of Glasgow City Chambers by more than a metre. The Municipal Buildings remain uncompleted, as a local businessman called Robert Cowan refused to sell his building in front of the tower for less than his own price, preventing completion of the right hand façade of the southern elevation.
Further evidence of this wealth can be seen in the large villas of Greenock’s west end, one time home to the ship owners, industrialists and investors. The area is fronted by the mile long (1.6 km) sweep of the Esplanade with its views across the Clyde to Kilcreggan which almost convinces the visitor that no heavy industry could have been anywhere nearby.
Battery Park and torpedoes
At Fort Matilda railway station the Newton Street railway tunnel emerges near the coast. The excavated material from the construction of the tunnel was used as landfill to the west of the old coastal gun emplacement of Fort Matilda, forming a level area which became the playing fields of Battery Park.
In 1907 the Admiralty compulsorily purchased part of this land and constructed the Clyde Torpedo Factory, which opened in 1910, with 700 workers transferred from the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. The site was tasked with designing and testing of torpedoes. These were then tested in Loch Long. During the Second World War the site switched entirely to manufacturing torpedoes. The original gun battery site was occupied by the Navy Buildings, the main offices, just to the east of the torpedo factory buildings.
Old West Kirk
A church had been established in Greenock in 1591 under the patronage of John Schaw, the first built in Scotland since the Reformation. In 1926, to make way for expansion of the Harland & Wolff shipyard (the present-day location of Container Way), the Old West Kirk was relocated to a new site on the Esplanade where it still stands. The church is notable for stained glass by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The Church has a web site which can be found at http://www.owkgreenock.info/[1]
Governance
Main article: Greenock (UK Parliament constituency)
Until 1974 Greenock was a parliamentary burgh in its own right. It was merged with Port Glasgow to form Greenock and Port Glasgow constituency. In 1997 it became Greenock and Inverclyde. After the redistribution of Scottish seats it was merged into an enlarged Inverclyde constituency- the first time in political history that Greenock has not been named in a parliamentary seat. Greenock and Inverclyde remains a Scottish Parliament constituency.
Health
Main article: Inverclyde Royal Hospital
The Inverclyde Royal Hospital is located in Greenock serving the population of Inverclyde, Largs, Bute and the Cowal Peninsula.[2] Ravenscraig Hospital deals with psychiatric, day patients, referrals and specialised prescribing.[3]
Geography
Areas and suburbs
Arran View, Bogston, Bow Farm, Braeside, Branchton, Bridgend, Broomhill, Cartsburn, Cornhaddock, Fancy Farm, Fort Matilda, Gibshill, Greenock West, Grieve Hill, Hole Farm, Larkfield, Lyle Hill, Lynedoch Overton, Pennyfern, Strone, Strone Farm, and Whinhill.
Economy
Historically, the town relied on shipbuilding, sugar refining and wool manufacturing for employment, but none of these industries are today part of Greenock’s economy. More recently the town relied heavily on electronics manufacture. However this has given way mostly to call centre business, insurance, banking and shipping export.
The Fleming and Reid merino wool mill employed 500 people – mostly women and produced wool garments spun and woven at the mill. This mill was at the corner of Drumfrochar Road and Mill Road
Electronics
Since IBM arrived in the town in 1951, electronics and light manufacturing have, until recently, been the mainstay of local employment. Texas Instruments (Formally National Semiconductor) has run a silicon wafer manufacturing plant in the town since 1970.
However, with manufacturing moving to Eastern Europe and Asia, work has shifted to the service sector, especially call centres. T-Mobile and IBM both have major call centre operations in Greenock, while the Royal Bank of Scotland Mortgage Centre processes Mortgage applications from throughout the UK & Ireland.
IBM have in recent years curtailed their operations greatly in the area. Sanmina, another electronics company, took over much of the IBM installation but moved 370 jobs to Hungary in 2006.[8] The Sanmina plant, which consisted of the former IBM AMDC (Automated Materials Distribution Centre) and Modules buildings 1 to 5, has since ceased operation and was demolished in 2009. The Spango Valley site was rebranded as “Valley Park” in late 2009.
Lenovo has also re-located away from Greenock, and the plant is now at 10% of the 1999/2000 capacity
Trade and commerce
Greenock’s main shopping thoroughfare was Hamilton Street, which connected West Blackhall Street in the west to Clyde Square in the east. In 1975 it disappeared along with several other streets as the area was pedestrianised as Hamilton Way. In the 1990s it was refurbished again, and The Oak Mall indoor shopping centre now forms the central feature of the town, and provides most of the major retail shops in Inverclyde, with approximately 85 units, with main anchor stores including Marks and Spencer, Boots, Primark and a newly opened New Look store. Marks and Spencer is in its original building (dating from 1936) which was simply built round during the first phase of pedestrianisation.[9] In addition, two major supermarkets Tesco and Morrisons are sited near the mall. A retail estate is located nearby, in front of the Waterfront swimming pool and leisure centre, and the streets around the mall provide a large number of smaller shops. Small groups of shops in most of the areas of the town provide for day to day needs, but most of the specialist shops are in the town centre. The town contains one diplomatic mission, an Italian consulate.
Transport
Greenock’s most significant transportation connection is the Container Terminal (see above).
Greenock is Scotland’s best served town in terms of railway stations. It boasts nine: Bogston, Cartsdyke, Greenock Central, Greenock West, Fort Matilda, Whinhill, Drumfrochar, Branchton and IBM Halt. Only Glasgow has a much greater number of stations and Edinburgh possesses only one more. Greenock has the longest bored railway tunnel in Scotland[citation needed] at 1.2 miles (1.9 km) in length – the cut and cover tunnels of the North Clyde Line and Argyle Line beneath Glasgow City Centre are considerably longer. Located directly under Newton Street in the town, the tunnel allowed for the extension of the railway to Gourock.
Greenock is served by a number of local bus routes covering the majority of Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow. Long distance services travel regularly to Glasgow, Largs and Dunoon. The majority of routes are run by McGill’s Bus Services. The Largs to Glasgow corridor is served by three services, the 901, 906 and 908, which provide a bus along this route every 15 minutes for most of the day. Route 907 offers a service from Glasgow’s Buchanan bus station to Dunoon via Braehead, Port Glasgow and Greenock every 2 hours. The X7 service also offers travel from Greenock to Glasgow, serving the Slaemuir area of Port Glasgow before travelling through Kilmacolm, Bridge of Weir, Houston and Linwood, then joining the motorway to Braehead before heading into Glasgow City Centre.
Greenock is located at the end of the A8 road/M8 motorway which begins in Edinburgh. It is also the northern terminus of Euroroute E05 which heads south through England, France and Spain, ending at the Spanish port and container terminal of Algeciras.
Culture
Greenock is one of the settings for Alan Sharp‘s 1965 novel A Green Tree in Gedde. It is fictionalised as ‘Gantock’ by Robin Jenkins in his 1979 novel Fergus Lamont (The Gky shoal in the Firth of Clyde nearby, just off Dunoon). Alasdair Gray‘s 1984 novel 1982, Janine is set in a Greenock hotel room. Matthew Fitt‘s cyberpunk novel But’n’Ben A-Go-Go features a submerged Greenock after the effects of global warming. Greenock featured in several of the poems of W.S. Graham (evoking his childhood) and Douglas Dunn. Greenock is home to the world’s first Burns Club, The Mother Club, which was founded in 1801 by merchants born in Ayrshire, some of whom had known Robert Burns. They held the first Burns Supper on what they thought was his birthday on 29 January 1802, but in 1803 discovered from the Ayr parish records that the correct date was 25 January 1759.[10] The Victorian landscape artist John Atkinson Grimshaw depicted a somewhat idealised Greenock in several of his paintings. The Mclean Museum is the largest museum in the Inverclyde area, featuring exhibitions on James Watt and a collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts. The Arts Guild Theatre (Greenock) is a local venue thay hosts many comedians, musicians and plays every year.
In television
As of 2012, Greenock will be the setting for BBC television drama Waterloo Road, after the series will be relocated from Rochdale, Greater Manchester. The series will be shot at Greenock Academy, a former secondary school in the west end of town.[11]
In film
Greenock has featured as the backdrop to several films: the television films Just a Boys’ Game (1979), Down Where The Buffalo Go (1988) and Down Among the Big Boys (1993)[12] and the cinema films Sweet Sixteen (2002) and Dear Frankie (2004). “Leaving” 1988 by Danny Boyle
Media
The town has a daily evening newspaper, The Greenock Telegraph. Dating from 1857, it is one of the oldest daily local newspapers in the United Kingdom[citation needed]. Inverclyde FM on line is a community Internet radio station run by volunteers.[13]
Sports
Greenock Morton F.C. are the local senior football team who currently play in the Scottish Football League First Division.[19] Founded in 1874 as Morton F.C., they play their home matches at Cappielow. At lower levels of the game, Greenock Juniors F.C. play in the Stagecoach West of Scotland junior football league.
Greenock hosts a rugby union team, Greenock Wanderers RFC,[20] and is the home town of the Greenock Cricket Club.[21]
Public Sports and Leisure Facilities
Leisure facilities in Greenock are primarily provided by Inverclyde Leisure. There are several sports facilities in the town and surrounding area managed by Inverclyde Leisure:
Waterfront Leisure Complex
Greenock Sports Centre
Lady Octavia Sports Centre
Boglestone Community Centre and Fitness Gym
Ravenscraig Sports Centre
Battery Park Pavilion
Gourock Fitness Gym
Gourock Outdoor Swimming Pool
Birkmyre Park Fitness Gym (Kilmacolm)
As of 2009, there are plans to build a new multi-purpose facility at Rankin Park.[22]
Climate
Greenock’s climate is temperate maritime having mainly cool summers but with relatively mild winters. Its location means that the heat retentive properties of seawater help keep winter temperatures higher. Additionally, the effect of the Gulf Stream on the Clyde helps Greenock’s average temperature stay approximately one degree above that of eastern coastal towns on the same latitude. Indeed Greenock’s latitude (55.94 degrees north with a longitude of 4.75 degrees west) places it at the same latitude as the Moscow area. The warming effect of the Gulf Stream however, keeps the winter weather in Greenock much milder than that of Moscow.
Greenock anecdotally has the reputation for having higher than average rainfall (the song The Green Oak Tree comments on this) but this is not statistically true; northwest of Fort William has the highest average rainfall in Scotland.[23] Greenock’s location gives long hours of daylight in midsummer with the opposite true in midwinter. On the longest day, 21 June, the sun rises at 04:31 and sets at 22:07. In midwinter, 21 December, the sun rises at 08:46 and sets at 15:44.
