I have to hold my hands up, we've let you down a bit in recent times. The site hasn't been updated and to be truthful, it has looked a bit in need of some TLC. This should change! Our webmaster, Jim Chestnut, met with Stewart Noble and me today, to give us a crash course in updating and maintaining the site.

Some of the changes you should notice immediately. Others including improving the search terms for Google (other search engines are available!), will be ongoing but will take a bit longer.

Robert Ryan (Chairman Helensburgh Heritage Trust)

At Helensburgh the twenty-seventh day of July eighteen hundred and thirty-three, at eight  o'clock AM being the time fixed for ascertaining and going along the Boundary lines of the Burgh specified in the charter and fixing in proper places Boundary stones in order that the Boundaries may be known in time coming.

The Very Early Days

Rosneath is one of the older settlements in the local area, and its name is said to be derived from the Gaelic "Rosneveth", meaning "headland of the sanctuary", which in turn probably relates to St Modan. It should however be noted that there are other possible derivations of the village’s name.

HER Royal Highness Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, had a huge impact on Helensburgh and Garelochside, where she lived in Rosneath Castle and loved the beauty and quietness of the Gareloch.

HELENSBURGH has always prided itself that a Prime Minister came from the burgh, despite the fact that he is known as “The Unknown Prime Minister”.

A HELENSBURGH man who served as a County Councillor for 23 years was a First World War hero who won the Victoria Cross, the top award for gallantry in the face of the enemy.

THE sad event of 8 September 2022 has set me thinking back to the Queen’s Accession on 6 February 1952.

A FOLK singer who came to live in Helensburgh 2007 is famous throughout Scotland and has been described as having ‘a God given voice that knocks you sideways’.

A FORMER professional footballer who spent the last 18 years of his life in Helensburgh managed Manchester United for five years and Ipswich Town for 18 years.

Dr Charles Blatherwick, son of a Nottinghamshire surgeon, Thomas Blatherwick and his wife Mary Ann, studied for his MD in Dublin and practised medicine in Highgate, London. In 1865 he moved to “Dunaivon” Rhu, having been appointed Chief Inspector of Alkali and Chemical Works for Scotland and Northern Ireland. 

Samuel John Lamorna Birch
(1860 – 1955)

Lamorna Birch was a renowned landscape painter in both oil and watercolour and a prominent member of the second generation of the Newlyn School of Artists. He was born in Egremont in Cheshire in June 1869, and as a boy moved to Manchester and later to Lancashire working in a mill, painting at dawn and sunset.

Erskine Beveridge  1885 – 1972

From limited biographical information available, we understand that Erskine Beveridge was a Glasgow artist, painting in both oils and watercolour.  As his subject he seemed to favour land/seascapes of the Clyde and surrounding area, of which the painting in the Anderson (Local Collection) Trust is a fine example.  He exhibited with the Royal Glasgow Institute, the RSA and the RSW.