Blog at the Ballast

Inspired by the beautiful weather we have been having, this week's Friday photo is of Lossiemouth fish quay. This coloured glass negative (Ref: DC188/1/13/31) is part of our Dan McDonald collection. National Library of Scotland's Moving Image Archive have a lovely film of Lossiemouth's fishing industry, detailing the preparations before, during and after a catch. ...

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This week I attended 'Paisley's Industrial and Cultural Heritage Conference' held at Paisley Town Hall. This day long conference was presented jointly by The Paisley Centre for Business and Industrial History (UWS), the Business Archives Council of Scotland and Renfrewshire Council and was supported by Paisley Townscape and Heritage and Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (TH.CARS2) funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Environment...

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In preparation for tomorrow's theme on all things Engineering, I thought this week's Friday photo would be a nice opportunity to show some of Bill's collection of shipyard and engine works photographs.  This image is of the only diesel engine designed and built by Kincaids. This was fitted for the mv Kindiesel built by Ardrossan Dockyard, Yard no 361 in 1936.  This photo...

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This week, we have a beautiful three-masted iron sailing ship from the Dan McDonald Collection, the 'Earl of Zetland'. Like most of the glass negatives in this collection, this particular ship was built on the Clyde, at Archibald McMillan & Sons yard in Dumbarton in 1875. She is recorded as carrying many immigrants to Australia and New Zealand, with one group of immigrants...

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This week's Friday photo is of a few of our lovely volunteers! As it's #VolunteerWeek we wanted to show some of our volunteers who work with the Trust on a weekly basis. The Trust owes its success to our volunteers and their enthusiasm, dedication and vast knowledge (on all things!). Here's 3 of our volunteers; Graham (left) who is currently working on Stephen's...

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This week I have been focusing on box listing Clyde Port Authority and Clyde Navigation Trust material from Glasgow City Archives. This has brought up some interesting findings, in particular volumes of 'Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects' and a beautiful set of watercolour plans of the Harbour of Glasgow from Clyde Navigation c.1875 and 1840.   Transactions of the Institutions of Naval...

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This week's Friday photo is one of the glass negatives from the Dan McDonald collection, which was digitised earlier this week by one of our volunteers, William Brown. The Dan McDonald collection is permanently held with the Trust and was bought by Bill Lind in 1996. The collection contains over 6,500 images of ships, vessels and places along the Clyde and west coast...

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