The Simons and Lobnitz yard, just downstream from the Renfrew Ferry, specialised in dredgers and hopper barges which helped navigation and waterway maintenance projects not only on the Clyde, but also in Africa, India and, most famously, the Panama Canal.
Nowadays their basin serves a yard exporting scrap
metal.
The building of dredgers and hopper barges was largely dominated
by four Clyde firms based in Port Glasgow, Paisley and
Renfrew. Apart from world wide exports, all supplied
the Clyde Navigation Trust whose
responsibility it was to ensure that the river remained
commercially navigable, preventing the build up of silt, deepening
it to meet the ever increasing draught of larger ships, and
developing new quays and basins as all the available space was
taken further upriver. As time went on it was also necessary for
arrange for the dredged material to be dumped in deep water further
out in the Firth of Clyde, rather than on the banks as previously.
For all this dredging new technology was needed to speed up work
and lower costs.
The Simons yard based itself in Renfrew from 1860. In 1874 their
competitor, Coulburn Lobnitz & Company set up next door.
Both progressively introduced technical innovations which improved
the performance of their dredgers and hoppers. The two companies
eventually amalgamated in 1957 in the face of declining
business and finally closed in 1964, after some 1300 dredgers as
well as barges and tugs had been built at the site.
One steam ship built by Lobnitz survives. The SS Shieldhall was
built in 1955 at Renfrew to carry treated sludge from Glasgow's
sewage works for dumping further out on the Firth of Clyde.
After several changes of ownership she was purchased by a charity,
the Solent Steam Packet Ltd which operates summer cruises from
Southampton. Like the Waverley she is on the UK's National Register
of Historic Vessels.
Also at Renfrew (Back to listings)