What was made in Scotland?

As I have just finished with a part on the website recording some history on Lofting, it brought to mind that Scotland really did built ships, thousands of them. As I featured a little part on the Loftsmen from the Charles Connell shipyard on the Clyde, it made me think that although my website is primarily about Leith-Built Ships, this would be somewhat remiss if we did not feature some or all of the other shipyards that were a common feature of Scotland not so long ago.

So this feature will be a form of tribute to all the shipbuilders of Scotland.

So we are now looking at featuring the shipyards that build ships around Scotland, I thought it may be interesting to begin at the Border, going around counter-clockwise.

So let’s begin with Berwick shipyard (I know it could be seen as being in England) but for this feature in my Blog we will regard this fine small yard as being in Scotland.

This small yard built many fine fishing vessels and once built they transported them through the town of Berwick. They also built many other vessels up to around 120ft in length, such as luxury yachts, ferries, tugs, launches, and barges. The Berwick Shipyard closed in 1979.

Some of the boats went to Leith to do their sea trails I seem to remember being told, I believe they had one or two Loftsmen working in the yard.

They have a neat website which can be found here (Just click on the link to go there)

The above picture is a scene from the wonderful Berwick Shipyard website.

I hope that should we miss any of the shipyards out as we travel virtually around the coast of Scotland, then our readers will not be slow in pointing this out, we wish to feature as many of the yards as possible (Commercial shipyards, primarily we will perhaps include some of the smaller boatyards over time) Each time we shall feature a differnt shipyard, so join us on our travels around the shipyards of Scotland.

Yes I know that a great many things were made in Scotland but for this Blog and website we will only concentrate on the great shipbuilding industry that now say’s

They Once Were Shipbuilders