Events

THE five year project to restore gates and fencing to the Victoria Hall was described to members of Helensburgh Heritage Trust at their February 2011 open meeting.

Tony Dance, who led the project on behalf of the Friends of the Victoria Hall, gave a very well illustrated talk which demonstrated the complexity and the skills involved in the metalwork and stone masonry. The original fencing was removed in 1942 for the war effort.

THE colourful life of a Helensburgh man who is believed to be the first man to make diamonds artificially was described to members and guests at the Helensburgh Heritage Trust meeting in Helensburgh Lawn Tennis Club on Wednesday January 26 2011.

Guest speaker David Harvie FSAScot from Dumbarton revealed the many facets of the life of James Ballantyne Hannay, with illustrations of where he lived and worked.

THE story of the very successful excavation at High Morlaggan, near Arrochar, was told to Helensburgh Heritage Trust members and guests at the November 2010 open meeting.

Organisers Fiona Jackson and Sue Furness told the well attended meeting in Helensburgh Lawn Tennis Club about the two-week dig by the Morlaggan Rural Settlement Group, assisted by pupils of Arrochar Primary School, which took place in 2009.

HELENSBURGH Heritage Trust chairman Stewart Noble described many of the old railway lines which served Dumbarton, the Vale of Leven and Glasgow in a talk at the Trust's well-attended October open meeting in Helensburgh Lawn Tennis Club.

A VEIL of secrecy was lifted for Helensburgh Heritage Trust members and guests at the first meeting of the 2010-11 winter session on September 29. 

David W.Norman, whose father James was Superintendent of the top secret Admiralty Hydro Ballistic Research Establishment at the west end of Glen Fruin from 1950 to 1969, gave an excellent talk about the establishment.

HELENSBURGH Heritage Trust members paid a special visit to St Michael and All Angels Church on the evening of Friday May 28 2010.

The visit, by kind permission of the Rev David Cook and organised by Trust directors Nigel Allan and John Johnston, was free of charge, but those who took part made a donation to the church's Restoration and Conservation Fund.

THE attractions of historic Dumfries House, near Cumnock, were described to a packed final open meeting of the Helensburgh Heritage Trust winter season on Wednesday March 31 by curator Charlotte Rostek Davis. 

It was a homecoming and a reunion with many old friends for Charlotte, whose husband is Helensburgh reference librarian Mike Davis and who formerly lived in the town when she was the curator at the Charles Rennie Mackintosh mansion Hill House.

MEMBERS of Helensburgh Heritage Trust heard the story of the award-winning Arrochar, Tarbet and Ardlui Heritage Group at their penultimate meeting of the 2009-10 winter season in Helensburgh Lawn Tennis Club on Wednesday February 24.

Heritage Trust president Stewart Noble introduced the speaker, Mary Haggarty, founder and chair of the Group, who told of its formation in 2002 and the rapid progress it has made since then — including winning a Nationwide Community and Heritage Award in 2007.

THE continuing decay of the former St Peter's Seminary at Cardross was lamented by an expert in historic buildings at the October open meeting of Helensburgh Heritage Trust at Helensburgh Tennis Club.

Simon Green, of the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, travelled from Edinburgh to give a talk on some of the buildings of interest in the Clyde area.

THE centenary of Guiding in Helensburgh formed a major part of Helensburgh Heritage Trust's second Memorabilia Night at Helensburgh Lawn Tennis Club on Wednesday September 30.

District Commissioner Lisa Summers and Isobel Stirling provided a display of pictures and newspaper cuttings charting the progress of the organisation in the area.

HELENSBURGH Heritage Trust organised a visit to the Scottish Railway Preservation Society’s Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway at Bo'ness on Tuesday June 2 2009.

Local man Tony Dance kindly gave Trust members and friends a conducted tour behind the scenes.

A PREVIEW of some of the content of two new books about the development of television was given to members of Helensburgh Heritage Trust at their final meeting of the winter season in Helensburgh Tennis Club on Wednesday March 25 2009.

Dr Douglas Brown of Strathclyde University, an expert on TV inventor John Logie Baird, spoke about his soon to be published books ‘Images Across Space’ and ‘Beyond The Surface’.