‘TREASURE Trove’ Of Bygone Greenock And Port Glasgow Photos Found
West Blackhall Street, Greenock,1972
IMAGES from an archive showing Greenock and Port Glasgow before massive clearances and redevelopment of the town centres in the late 1960s/early 1970s are to go on public display for the first time.
Inverclyde Heritage Network, via the Watt Institution, received the collection from the family of an amateur photographer who spent 10 years capturing views of the town.
Alexander (Sandy) Kennedy was a skilled armature winder to trade and a keen amateur photographer in his spare time. Brought up in Charles Street in Greenock, he moved to John Street when the central area of the town was being demolished. This may have prompted him to start taking hundreds of images of buildings and entire streets many of which would soon disappear forever.
Charles Street, Greenock, 1970
Sandy’s extensive photographic archive was uncovered by his family after he passed away in July 2018. They contacted social history staff at the Watt Institution, who approached video and imaging expert, Chris Bradley of West College Scotland to convert the slide transparencies to digital images.
Chris’s many hours of painstaking work included cleaning the slides, the removal of blemishes and cataloguing the 900-plus photos in the collection.
The photographs show much of the Greenock central area including High Street, Charles Street, Anne Street and ‘Chinatown’ as well as the Glen district of Port Glasgow.
The Watt Institution have passed the digital images on to the Heritage Network, who will be showcasing a selection of them in the D McGilp pop-up shop in Kempock Street, Gourock. The shop will be open to the public from 10am until 4pm each day from Monday 14 October until Saturday 19 October.
The Network will be selling flash drives containing the entire collection, for £10 each. All proceeds will go to Network funds.
A spokesman for the network said: “This treasure trove of unique photos, taken during a period of extensive redevelopment, will be of great interest and provide an invaluable record of housing conditions as well as a reminder of long-gone corner shops, factories and schools.”
Anyone wishing to join Inverclyde Heritage Network and take part in local heritage research can do so by visiting the pop-up shop or via its Facebook page @InverclydeHN. Membership is just £5 or £2 for concessions.
