Islands of the Clyde Grand Tours of Scotland

For generations, the Firth of Clyde

was the holiday destination of choice for millions of Scots,

both rich and poor.

Here, you could enjoy healthy sea breezes,

take a dunk in the briny

and have a glass or two of your favourite tipple.

And, if you were rich enough,

you could enjoy all of the above at the same time.

Bottoms up.

In this series, I'm retracing the routes taken by some of

the early tourists to Scotland.

From as early as 1820, publishers began producing tourist guide books,

and Black's Picturesque Guide to Scotland was one of the first.

A copy of this wonderful volume has been in my family for generations.

It was always kept in my father's car when we went on holiday.

Now, I'm letting its pages guide me again

on my six Grand Tours of Scotland.

On the road, I'll also be

dipping in to the notes and jottings

of some early travellers

to hear about their experiences.

This time, I'm on a voyage to discover

how visitors from all walks of life

enjoyed the islands, towns and sheltered bays

of the mighty Firth of Clyde.

My grand tour takes me down the Clyde Riviera,

calling first at Rothesay on the Isle of Bute,

hops across to Cumbrae, and finally sails south

to the great rock sentinel, Ailsa Craig.

My journey starts here, where the River Clyde

meets the sea and becomes the Firth of Clyde.

This is somewhere that I know very well

and I'm particularly fond of.

I spent a huge amount of time as a child on this stretch of water,

thanks to my father's obsession with sailing.

He was once a member of the Clyde Cruising Club,

and was the proud owner of an antique yacht built in 1890,

called West Wind.

Now, before West Wind dragged her anchor and was wrecked,

she was my father's sailing craft of choice

and, from time to time, he even took his sons with him.

But West Wind was a much more modest craft

than the one I'm sailing today.

It was in Victorian times that the sport of yachting really took off,

when yachts of up to a hundred feet in length, with a full-time crew

and every modern convenience,

sailed these sheltered waters.

In the early days, yachting on the Clyde was restricted

to Scotland's super-rich.

Men who'd made an absolute fortune from the Industrial Revolution,

and if you've got it, flaunt it, they say.

And what better way of demonstrating your new-found

wealth and social position than by owning and racing

a beautiful yacht?

The famous Scottish magnate Sir Thomas Lipton

loved sailing in these waters

and Prince Edward, the future King,

sailed his yacht Britannia along this coast.

By the end of the 19th century, the Clyde had become a playground

for the rich, and its many coastal towns and villages flourished.

My first destination is the Isle of Bute,

and a small town that was transformed into

one of the most exclusive holiday destinations on the west coast.

Rothesay.

According to Black's,

Rothesay is "agreeably situated

"at the head of a deep bay, which affords

"a safe anchorage ground in any wind".

Sounds ideal.

To a large extent, Rothesay was considered

a posh resort, and early tourist literature

was keen to trumpet the town's royal connections.

If there was one thing that early Victorian tourists loved,

it was history,

and Rothesay could boast a castle which had been a favourite

with early Scottish kings.

Re-enactments of scenes from the castle's famous history

were a popular attraction for visitors.

Here, we see the marriage of Robert the Bruce's daughter,

and the founding of the Stuart dynasty.

But it wasn't only history that brought the well-to-do tourist.

There was also miniature golf,

which the Victorians deemed a much more

appropriate game for women.

Rothesay seemed to have it all.

Why bother travelling abroad

when you've got all this on your doorstep?

Look, palm trees!

Rothesay's main selling point

was its climate,

which Black's enthusiastically describes as "mild and genial."

It may seem hard to believe, but early visitors were encouraged

to compare the weather of Rothesay with exotic and far-flung locations.

Incredibly, the town promoted itself as the Madeira of Scotland.

Not only was the climate of Rothesay thought to be subtropical,

it was also considered to have extraordinary health benefits

and, for this reason,

was chosen as the location for Scotland's first ever hydro,

the Victorian equivalent of a health farm.

The Glenburn Hotel was once known as the Glenburn Hydropathic,

opening its doors for business in 1843.

The Glenburn is still a grand and impressive building

and exudes a sort of stately calm,

and douceness that appealed to respectable people.

Hydropathy, otherwise known as the cold water cure,

became hugely popular in Victorian Scotland.

Hydro treatments were based on a variety of bathing

and dunking cures.

This, combined with fresh air, exercise and strictly no alcohol,

was meant to restore ailing patients to robust health.

For middle-class Victorians, time was precious,

and even leisure time had to be beneficial in some way.

So what better way of justifying having a holiday

than by going somewhere that would improve the health of your body,

your mind and your morals?

To find out more,

I've come to meet historian Dr Alastair Durie.

Alastair, the Glenburn Hotel is

a pretty impressive building, and it implies to me

that in Victorian times,

taking a hydro holiday was really a popular thing to do.

It was.

It was an idea that came in from Austria in the mid-19th century,

and the Scots took to it like a duck to water.

They built 15 to 18 very large hotels,

whose main purpose is to cure people

and treat them through hydropathy.

It's a system of baths, it's a system of showers,

it's a system of massage.

Your treatment is water and water only.

Your diet is meat and fish, but no drink whatsoever.

Right.

And some very significant figures

in the Victorian world underwent hydropathy.

For instance, Charles Darwin, Tennyson,

Florence Nightingale when she comes back from the Crimea.

These are important people and they're saying it's good for them.

Why shouldn't it be good for you?

So it's got a Victorian celebrity endorsement?

Absolutely.

Well, I think I'm in need of some remedial care.

I can see you are.

So, to try and understand just why

the Victorians were so keen on hydropathy,

I volunteered to experience

one of the most popular treatments first-hand.

The wet sheet.

Lucky me!

This is the centrepiece of hydropathy.

Wrapping you in cold, wet sheets...

Oh! That's ghastly.

..like a mummy. And Jane will now do that.

Aargh! This is hideous. What's the point?

The point is that it's going to get you to perspire,

and the perspiration will bring the badness out of your system

and open your pores for fresh air.

This is doing you good.

No, it's not! It's not.

You may feel it's unpleasant,

but our objective is to get you to perspire.

At the moment, you're shivering, your body is reacting,

but this is your first experience of the process.

Have you tried this, Alastair?

I believe it's far better for the invalid to experience these things...

Right. Right.

..than the doctor. But we will wait and watch and see.

I can't imagine it'll do me any good whatsoever.

You can only trust in the experience of

the many thousands of people who have experienced this treatment

to their benefit and, I may say, with much less complaint than you.

Ah, but they're all dead! Let's face it.

You're hastening me on my way, I'm sure.

It's freezing!

We will return in an hour or so.

An hour?!

I think my core body temperature has dropped dangerously.

'The Victorians may have lapped this up,

'but paying for the privilege of being wrapped in

'soggy towels is not my idea of fun.

'And one early hydropathy patient agreed.'

"I have been stewed like a juice, beat on like a drum,

"battered like a pancake,

"and wrapped like a mummy in wet sheets and blankets.

"My belief is that I am in a lunatic asylum!"

'I can only agree.'

Brrrrr!

So while the good doctor is out of the room,

I quickly slip away in search of

one of Rothesay's more curious attractions,

tucked away where you'd least expect it.

Now, you wouldn't normally take a camera into a public toilet,

unless you wanted to get arrested, which I don't.

So, before I go any further, I'm just going to check behind this door

to make sure there isn't anyone inside

about to be seriously embarrassed.

Hello?

I think we're OK.

I can now reveal all in its quite,

well, exceptional magnificence.

It's a veritable porcelain palace.

A shrine to the urinal.

These splendid toilets were built in 1899

and are really quite something -

14 urinals,

each crowned with marble.

Walls and floors entirely clad

in decorative ceramic tiles...

and glass-sided cisterns feeding water

through shining copper pipes.

What all this opulence says to me

is, "Wow!"

Now, just imagine coming here

a hundred years ago for the first time

as a tourist, perhaps from overseas.

What would you think?

Well, you might think if the society that built this

was so technologically advanced that it could create

a palace, really, to meet a very basic human need,

then what would its real palaces be like?

Its great civic buildings, its battleships, its engines of war?

And that's a really awe-inspiring thought to have in, in a loo.

Indeed, such grand designs were not confined

to humble buildings like public conveniences.

And just outside the town is the ultimate example

of Victorian ambition and ingenuity.

This is Mount Stuart House.

Built in 1877, it's a distillation

of the Victorian obsession for an imagined past,

combined with all the mod cons of the age.

It was the first house in Scotland to have electricity,

and the first house in the world to have a heated swimming pool.

This was an era of great technological changes,

and one particular advance taking place at this time

would have a huge impact

on seaside resorts like Rothesay.

Just like modern visitors, Victorian tourists

coming to a spectacular location like this

wanted to take home a souvenir to show their cultured friends

just where they'd been.

Now, we do this all the time whenever we take a photograph,

but back then, cameras were very rare.

Despite this, Victorian tourists were still able to enjoy

the delights and magic of photography.

Magic lantern shows, which projected

glass photographic slides, were extremely popular,

and they provide an amazing insight into a lost world.

Mark Butterworth,

who has a vast library of Victorian photography,

is going to show me a selection of images

that would have delighted a 19th-century audience.

Now, Mark, I recognise that view.

This is Rothesay.

Probably in the early 1890s.

They didn't buy postcards in those days.

There was no postcard industry whatsoever in the UK,

so prints and magic lantern slides were

the principle photographic souvenirs that people would buy.

So back in Victorian times, if you came into Rothesay,

got off at the pier, you'd be confronted with lots of stalls

selling souvenirs and photographic memorabilia

and you could buy a slide.

That's right.

So this is an interesting slide.

On the left of the image there, you can see

there's a carriage with a man standing next to it.

That's actually the photographer's dark room.

Uh-huh.

The photographer actually made the plate

moments before he took the photograph.

And it had to be developed as soon as he'd taken the photograph,

and one of the great skills was being able to consistently

make your plates to give you the same quality every time,

and that was really quite a challenge.

You're working in quite difficult conditions.

It's amazing, cos at that time, this was cutting-edge technology.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

People didn't have cameras in those days, so magic lanterns

were a way of showing people the views they'd experienced.

But you didn't actually have to own a magic lantern slide

or a projector to have a show.

That's right. There were several firms,

some of them very big companies,

that hired out slides, or even hired out lanterns.

They'd come with a set of lecture notes, and that was very common.

That's amazing.

It's like ordering a DVD online now.

Exactly the same process, but, er, 130, 140 years ago.

Now, how popular were magic lantern shows like this,

to show slides like the ones you're showing me?

Very popular. This was a very common form of entertainment.

Towards the end of the 19th century, you either went to the theatre,

you went to the music hall, or you went to a magic lantern...

Uh-huh.

..performance. Seeing slides like this might encourage you to visit.

And visit, they did.

By the turn of the century, the Clyde was no longer

the preserve of wealthy tourists.

The age of mass tourism had begun.

I'm continuing my journey to the Isle of Cumbrae

to find out how coastal towns and villages were transformed

by another technological advance.

The steamer.

Joining me for this leg of my grand tour is

steaming enthusiast Iain Quinn.

Iain, as I understand it, steaming really started here on the Clyde.

It certainly did and it was down to one man, Henry Bell,

and the little paddle steamer the Comet.

Europe's first commercial steam ship.

What was the inspiration behind the Comet?

Bell was a hotel owner in Helensburgh

and he saw this wonderful estuary and said,

"The best way to take people down is by steam ship."

The Comet was launched on the 10th of August, 1812.

The sound of the paddle was heard down the Clyde for the first time.

So really, the whole business of pleasure steaming

began on the Clyde.

It did.

The 1850s, 1860s, it had really started to take off.

Steamers were getting a bit bigger.

Speed was getting a bit more powerful,

so you could then travel a bit further in a day.

How many steamers would have been plying their trade here?

By the 1880s, you would have had

about 40, maybe more.

This was cutting edge. This was new. This was the future.

Oh, yes. This was the future,

and by the 1920s and the 1930s,

you could travel the whole Clyde and back in a day.

It would have been lovely to have got away from the dirty,

smelly city to the fresh air of the Firth of Clyde.

With the steamers came the workers, who took full advantage

of the chance to escape from the cities

and factories where they lived and toiled.

With a regular steamer service,

Millport, here on the Isle of Cumbrae, rapidly became

a favourite destination for Victorian day trippers.

My guide book, Black's, describes Millport as "one of the great

"summer resorts of the inhabitants of Glasgow," and advises travellers

that the town's population is "trebled by visitors in the summer".

They came looking for a bit of fun

and a break from their hard-working lives,

but with only one day off a week,

they tried to pack in as much as possible.

So, perhaps predictably, some Clyde resorts began to acquire

a rather colourful reputation for being full of drunken revellers.

Of course, the antics of working-class drunken revellers

was bound to upset the sensibilities of more respectable tourists.

Especially the sort who enjoyed hydros

and who read The Scotsman newspaper.

A letter printed in this esteemed journal

airs the concerns of all right-thinking people.

"We lament to say that very many Scotch people

"of the working class seem incapable of enjoying a holiday

"without getting drunk.

"Once or twice, we have found ourselves crowded with

"a most disagreeable mob of intoxicated persons,

"including women."

Respectable citizens were getting upset at the sight

of working people having fun.

Demanding an end to rowdy and lewd behaviour, they put pressure

on the authorities to curb what they saw as a dangerous moral slide.

Can I have a pint of best, please?

This led to the infamous Forbes McKenzie Act,

which closed pubs on Sundays.

Thanks very much.

The only day off in the week.

Perversely, attempts to limit the sale of alcohol

to the working classes resulted in the exploitation

of a loophole in the law.

The result - the launch of the booze cruise.

Although the new law made it illegal to sell alcohol on Sundays,

it made a concession for bona-fide travellers,

who were allowed to buy a drink.

Crafty businessmen and steamer owners were quick

to see this as an opportunity

to sell booze to anyone sailing on a Sunday.

Oh, happy day.

Suddenly, steamers were offering Sunday specials for the workers,

and soon, everyone was steamin'.

Not only did these day trips give rise to the expression 'steaming'

to describe someone who's drunk,

it actually made the Clyde coast even more desirable.

Perhaps the most vivid record of the massive social change

that was taking place is the seaside postcard.

I'm meeting historian

and postcard collector

Eric Simpson to find out more.

You've got a wonderful collection of cards. They're unique,

because they provide a fascinating window on the past.

This is all social comment, really, and particularly

the habits of some of the more enthusiastic tourists.

Some chaps looking as if they're really enjoying themselves.

Yes, "The dry weather has its effects,"

so it was not unknown for fairly substantial numbers

to give the doon-the-water holiday a bad reputation

at certain times of the year.

The impression I get

is that generally speaking,

people were having a good time. They were having fun.

-Yes, yes.

-It's lively.

So working-class people would buy these and send them

-to their friends back home.

-Yes.

This is not for posh people,

who'd presumably send different sorts of postcard.

They'd send, for example,

the public park at West Bay in Millport.

-Extremely dull photograph!

-They'd send a photograph.

Now, in stark contrast, I have to say,

these are really quite amusing.

Very colourful Edwardian risque, er, seaside cards.

And what have we got here?

"The water is right up to my expectations."

I've no idea what that means.

No, no. Neither have I.

But there's so much life in these pictures, it's fantastic.

What it says to me is these are ordinary folk,

working folk having a good time.

Yes. Yes.

And that's what the Clyde was famous for.

But it wasn't just the fun and frolics

of the busy seaside resorts that brought visitors here

to the Firth of Clyde.

There were still some who sought the peace and tranquillity

that had first attracted tourists to these waters.

Those early yachtsmen on the Firth of Clyde

may have been industrial magnates

showing off their wealth, but gradually,

sailing became much more accessible, with more

affordable boats being built, and sailing clubs

springing up along the coast.

I've been invited aboard the vintage yacht Camilla

by Bill Inglis to travel in style

to my final destination.

Bill, Camilla, she's a beautiful boat.

She must be one of the oldest craft sailing on the Clyde.

Er, so I'm led to believe.

Camilla was commissioned for a

Mr Charles Millar of Tighnabruiach and built in 1894.

At 117, she's not doing badly.

Mmm.

But like any old lady of 117, she's marginally incontinent.

Oh, no!

She does leak.

Cos the story of yachting on the Clyde really begins with

men of tremendous wealth from the Industrial Revolution

-showing off.

-Yes.

In huge boats. That was for the elite.

This is something quite different.

What kind of person would have been able

to afford a boat like this?

A successful shopkeeper, businessman, tradesman.

I mean, she's not like the big Victorian yachts,

with a paid crew of 20 hands constantly kept available.

-It's not showing off, it's not ostentatious.

-No.

Do you think this is the beginning of perhaps the idea of

yachting for a man of more modest income, do you think?

Yes. Oh, very much so.

Very much so!

For me, this is the best way

to enjoy the Firth of Clyde.

And I have to say that

sailing on this little yacht

takes me back to the many trips I had as a child

on board my father's boat.

There's something about sailing, is there not,

that a person's not really at peace

unless they're at sea?

-Do you agree with that?

-Yes, I do.

A day like today, er, sunshine, blue skies

and a gentle breeze.

Contemplating nature and the sea.

It's a wonderful place. It's Scotland, isn't it?

The last leg of my grand tour takes me to a place that's literally

been on my horizon for years, but where I've never been before.

The mysterious island rock of Ailsa Craig.

As a schoolboy in Dunoon, I could see Ailsa Craig

through the window of my French class.

It's a place I've always wanted to explore,

so landing here today will be really special.

Known as Paddy's Milestone

because it sits directly in the main sea route

from Ireland to Scotland, it's a place that many have passed,

but few have visited.

But I must confess that the last thing I expected to find

was this scene of industrial decay.

This railway line

once carried granite from a quarry to the harbour.

The rock was used to make curling stones.

The quarry closed long ago,

and the last inhabitants left the island in the 1990s,

when the lighthouse became automated.

This ruined castle, perched precariously

on the steep slopes above the lighthouse,

was once a stronghold of the Kennedy Clan,

who have owned the island since the 16th century.

As I climb more than a thousand feet

above the Firth of Clyde,

and the end of my journey,

it strikes me that here is perhaps

one of the few places untouched by the mass tourism

of the industrial age.

What an absolutely superb view.

From up here, you can almost see the entire course of my route.

It was the chance for rich and poor alike to escape the city

that made the seaside resorts along this coast so popular.

And looking out from the summit of Ailsa Craig,

I can understand just what it was they came for.

You know, standing here is like being on top of

the very last outpost of Scotland.

Now, that's a fitting and somewhat sobering thought

to end my Grand Tour doon the water.

Now, where's the pub?

Next on Grand Tours,

I'm exploring the Central Highlands

on a vintage bike

to experience the charms of nature.

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