During the Victorian era, Glasgow’s reputation for shipbuilding and other industries earned it the nickname of the ‘Empire’s Second City’, but it also earned the industrial magnates a great deal of money. Rather than live in the city’s polluted atmosphere though, they, unsurprisingly, opted to build their luxury homes down on the Firth of Clyde instead.

The Clyde shipyards were renowned for constructing some of the world’s most famous ships, but they also built many other types of vessels, including paddle steamers which brought these wealthy industrialists and their associates up to the city – but by the end of the 19^th century the tide was beginning to turn, so to speak.

After years of struggling for better wages and conditions, workers in the shipyards and elsewhere, finally achieved the right to paid leave, and what better way to spend a week off than using these very same paddle steamers to take them and their families ‘Doon the Watter’ to the Firth of Clyde.

One of those paddle steamers that sailed up and down the Clyde was the Waverley. Built in 1899, it became a casualty of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, but a successor was built once the war was over. The boat still offers trips down to the Firth of Clyde today, and is the last seagoing passenger paddle steamer in the world.

Unfortunately, our visit didn’t allow us the pleasure of sailing down the Clyde on the Waverley, and we hired a car at Glasgow airport instead. We drove alongside the river towards Greenock, passing a signpost towards Kilmacolm at Port Glasgow which I hoped wasn’t aimed at me.

Port Glasgow was built as a cargo handling facility before dredging made the Clyde navigable up to the city centre, and even after the need for it as a port declined, shipbuilding carried on as a major source of employment. That industry has also virtually gone now, leaving the town a shadow of its former self. The only bright spot was now that the shipyards have been removed, the 15^th century Newark Castle was on full view and no doubt worth a visit, but we didn’t stop as we had a ferry to catch.

In total, there are twelve ferry routes on the Firth of Clyde, and today we’re travelling from Wemyss (pronounced Weems) Bay to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. The crossing took us just 35 minutes, and as we approached Rothesay I could already see why those shipyard workers would have wanted to bring their families down here for a break.

We were spending two nights on Bute which would give us a full day to look around the island tomorrow. Our accommodation was the Chandlers Hotel at Ascog, a small village just along the coast from Rothesay, and after checking in, we had enough time to take a look around the island’s capital.

The latest estimated population figures for Rothesay are 4,310, which is more than half the number of people living on the island (6,498). It doesn’t take a genius therefore, to work out  that it doesn’t take long to look around the town (or even Bute for that matter).

As the weather was being kind, I decided to drive up to Canada Hill first so that we could get an overall view of the surroundings (see featured image at top of the page). To get there you have to drive up Serpentine Road which is Bute’s equivalent to San Francisco’s Lombard Street. Ok, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the gist.

Back down in the town, we parked up near the harbour opposite Zavaroni’s Café which seemed as a good a place as any to stop for a coffee. Does anybody remember Lena Zavaroni? Lena was born in Greenock and grew up in Rothesay where her family have been selling fish ‘n chips and ice cream for years.

Lena was just 10 years old when she became an overnight singing sensation after appearing on Opportunity Knocks, a talent show hosted by Hughie Green in 1974. Before she was eleven she brought out an album (Ma! He’s Making Eyes at Me) which reached number eight in the UK album charts. She was the youngest person to have had an album in the top ten – and still is. Unfortunately, it didn’t end well. She suffered for years from anorexia and died at the age of 35. Such a shame, and such a waste.

At the time we were here the harbour was being redeveloped and it wasn’t looking at its best, but the roads facing the firth weren’t looking so bad, even though their heyday was obviously well behind them.

That coffee I had in Zavaroni’s was starting to make its presence felt, and thankfully there were some public conveniences on the pier – but these weren’t just any old run-down WCs. The outside belies what they look like on the inside, and believe me when I say I don’t normally go around taking pictures of gents toilets, but on this occasion I was happy to make an exception. This Victorian gem was commissioned by the Rothesay Harbour Trust in 1899 when the town was in its prime as a holiday resort. These conveniences must have given a lot of relief for men getting off the steamers: I say men, because there weren’t any facilities for ladies back then would you believe. That situation has since been rectified you’ll be glad to hear.

If there’s one thing to see in Rothesay, it has to be the 13^th century castle, and when we got there it wasn’t open – but I already knew it wouldn’t be. It has an interesting history from being attacked by the Vikings to being taken by Robert the Bruce and occupied by Oliver Cromwell. Following the accession of the Stewarts to the Scottish throne in 1371 the castle became home to Robert II and then Robert III who made his eldest son David, Duke of Rothesay, thereby starting a tradition of honouring the heir to the Scottish throne with the title – in much the same way as the Prince of Wales is the next in line to the crown of the United Kingdom. The Stewarts (Stuarts) were keepers of the castle until the keys were handed over to the state in 1961.

It was time to head back to the Chandlers where we had a table booked for our evening meal. Very nice it was too, and was followed by a visit to the bar where free entertainment was provided by three batty old ladies, who must have been well in their eighties. They had obviously had too much to drink and didn’t know whether they were coming or going, and were sending everyone else in different directions too.

When it was time to call it a day and retire upstairs to their room, one of them would have been back down quicker than she went up if it hadn’t have been for the swift actions of the waitress and barman who rushed to her rescue before she could do her Olga Korbut impressions back down to the bottom of the stairs – but it didn’t end there. In no time at all, one of ‘em was back down in the bar asking if somebody could shut the window because it was too cold, and then in a nano-second she was back down again complaining she was too hot. To be honest though, I couldn’t be sure if it was the same one or not because they were all going up and down like a bride’s nightie – and they were all wearing identical nighties.

My wife decided that she’d seen enough and went off up to bed as well, leaving me and the barman, Jamie, chewing the fat. The owners had gone out for the evening which enabled our friendly barman to pour rather generous glasses of Laphroaig. It was no wonder the old biddies were three sheets to the wind. I must have looked the same when it was my turn to totter off upstairs, and before I got to our room, I’m convinced that I saw a ghost in a nightie heading back downstairs again.

With the heavy handed Jamie pouring out copious amounts of Scotch whisky last night, you would have thought that I would have slept like a baby, but the rain beating down outside made sure that I didn’t, and it was still doing the same when it was time to go down for breakfast. The old biddies were down here before us, and when I asked the proprietor, Robin, how he was getting on with them, he told us they were running him ragged, and from that point onwards we referred to him as ‘Ragged Robin’.

Our plan today was to drive around the island starting at Mount Stuart, and as requested, we left our car overnight in the area reserved for hotel guests, but as we were about to get in, I noticed that the ‘treacherous trio’ were just about to leave the area reserved for the proprietors, and so I decided to let them go first. Even though they had reversing sensors on their car, it didn’t stop them smacking straight back into Robin’s smart BMW. Without flinching, they just nonchalantly drove off without giving it a second glance. I just hoped they weren’t going to Mount Stuart – but when we arrived, guess who was already there.

Mount Stuart is home to the Marquess of Bute, and in my view is the one thing not to miss when visiting the island, so undaunted we made our way into the house, which was by guided tour only at this time of the year, and as it’s the seat of the family of the Stuarts of Bute, photography was not permitted, which is a real shame in somewhere like this because it’s very different to most other country houses I’ve been to. The only other place I’ve been that is anything like it is Cardiff Castle – and there’s a reason for that.

The reason for the similarities is that the Stuarts of Bute not only hold land up here in Scotland, but also down in South Wales too. Before I go any further, if anybody is wondering about the correct spelling of the family’s name I’ll briefly elaborate. The name actually originates from the title of High Steward of Scotland, which later got abbreviated to Stewart. The first monarch with the Stewart name was Robert II, who as we saw yesterday, was fond of living at Bute Castle. The named eventually changed to Stuart when Mary, Queen of Scots adopted the French spelling of the name. So there’s another bit of useless information you didn’t really need to know.

Anyway, let’s fast forward to the time when the Stuarts held the title of Marquess of Bute, and in particular, the Second Marquess, who lived between 1793 and 1848. John Crichton-Stuart, or Lord Mount Stuart, as he also liked to be known, made his money by leasing out the mineral rights to his estates in South Wales, and you can find out how coal mining in particular changed the South Wales valleys here.

To export all this coal and iron he built Cardiff Docks, which became one of the world’s biggest docks at the time, and ever since I can remember, the area around Cardiff Docks has been known as Butetown. Like Glasgow, the maritime industries have practically all gone, and the area has undergone a complete transformation. If you’re interested enough, you can follow this transformation on another post, From Tiger Bay to Cardiff Bay.

The loans that the Marquess needed to take out in order to invest in his interests in South Wales meant that it would be a long time before any profits were realised, and Cardiff Castle, his home down there, was rarely used. Instead, he preferred to live on Bute where the family had lived since 1157, and between 1716 and 1719, he managed to lay his hands on enough money to build a plush new Georgian pile at Mount Stuart.

As is often the case, the Second Marquess made the money, but it was his son, the Third Marquess, who spent it. He was just still a babe in arms when he reportedly became the richest man in the world, and it didn’t take him long to work out how to get rid of it.

He had a wide variety of interests, and there was none more expensive than his love of architecture. He teamed up with the flamboyant Victorian architect, William Burges, who had the same mindset as himself in as much as they both wanted to escape, if only ideologically, from traditional and industrial Britain. Between them they set about altering the interior of Cardiff Castle into rooms that are now described as Gothic Revival. They also did the same to another castle belonging to the Marquess at nearby Castell Coch, which I’ve seen often enough, but never been in.

The Third Marquess was fond of Mount Stuart, and apart from a few small alterations, left it as it was. The only input Burges had was a small chapel in the north wing which the Marquess had asked him to design.

Burges died in 1881, and six years later a major fire all but destroyed the building. The Marquess then turned to Robert Rowand Anderson, a protégé of the great Victorian architect, George Gilbert Scott, and between them they set about rebuilding the house in the same Gothic Revival style that had transformed Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch.

Bute’s idea was to turn the house into a palace and many innovative ideas were employed: It was the first building in Scotland to have electric lighting throughout and the world’s first heated pool.

With no photos to show you of the interior, and the fact that it was too wet to enjoy the gardens, the best I can come up with is an 8 minute YouTube video of dubious quality to give you some idea of what Mount Stuart is like, but it’s better than nothing – I think.

Bute, being relatively small means that there aren’t an awful lot of places to go and visit when the weather isn’t playing ball, but regardless, we continued on the A844 circular road around the island.

The Highland Boundary Fault, which runs in a north-easterly direction from the Isle of Arran to Stonehaven on the North Sea coast, passes through Bute and divides the island (and Scotland) into Lowland and Highland areas. However, the circular road only covers the southern, lowland, part of the island, and so from Mount Stuart we headed south towards Kilchattan Bay.

Turning off the main road at Kingarth, a minor road took us down to Kilchattan Bay, which on a nice day I’m sure would have been quite lovely, but today it wasn’t quite like that. Normally, there would have been good views of Great and Little Cumbrae, which lie between Bute and the Ayrshire coast, but it wasn’t even worth getting my camera out today.

Our plans also included a visit to the former Celtic monastery and ruined church at St Blane’s, but on arrival, the heavens absolutely opened up before we could even get out of the car, and so we had little choice but to continue on towards Scalpsie Bay. Big G must have been looking down on us though, because as soon as we resumed our journey, the clouds started to part, giving us some fabulous views across the Sound of Bute towards the Isle of Arran, and I could now see why Arran islanders think that the best thing about Bute is the views to Arran.

By the time we reached Scalpsie Bay, not only was the weather picking up for us, it was enticing the colony of 200 seals to come up onto the beach – not close enough for us to photograph them mind you – but it was still lovely to see.

We spent quite a bit of time at Scalpsie Bay, perhaps too much, because we were heading for Ettrick Bay next where there was supposed to be a decent café, but when we arrived they were just shutting up shop. Still, it wouldn’t take us long to travel over from the west coast to Port Bannatyne on the east – not much more than five minutes to be exact.

Port Bannatyne is located on Kanes Bay, less than two miles from Rothesay and was developed as an alternative destination for visitors to Bute, and although it’s the second largest settlement on the island, it still only has around a thousand inhabitants. Although it was used as a submarine base during the Second World War, it has a less workaday feel about it than Rothesay with good views across the Firth of Clyde, and it’s easy to see why some people would prefer it to the capital.

We found somewhere to take a pit stop in Port Bannatyne at the Port Royal Hotel, better known as the Russian Tavern. It might seem a bit incongruous, because Bute is the last place you would expect to see a place like this. We were served by the Russian landlady, who along with her partner in 2000, turned the place into a replica of a Russian tavern during imperial times, but unfortunately, for some reason, the pub has since closed down, which is a shame because I like pubs like these that are different.

I’m not quite sure what I was really expecting with Bute, but on reflection, it seemed like a bit of a mixture between island and urban life. For example, I never really expected to see tenement buildings here, but at the same time, most of the island is tranquil in nature, more typical of the Lowlands.

Tonight, much to Jamie’s disappointment, I’m going to retire early, not just to miss the antics of the Treacherous Three, but to make sure that our trip across the Cowal Peninsula to Arran tomorrow has a reasonable chance of success.

POSTED – JUNE 2023