31 Facts About Greenock

Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in Scotland and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland.

Place-name scholar William J Watson wrote that "Greenock is well known in Gaelic as Grianaig, dative of grianag, a sunny knoll".

Around 1400 his successor Malcolm Galbraith died with no sons, and his estate was divided between his two daughters to become two baronies: the eldest inherited Easter Greenock and married a Crawfurd, while Wester Greenock went to the younger daughter who married Schaw of Sauchie.

Coast of Greenock formed a broad bay with three smaller indentations: the Bay of Quick was known as a safe anchorage as far back as 1164.

The fishing village of Greenock developed along this bay, and around 1635 Sir John Schaw had a jetty built into the bay which became known as Sir John's Bay.

Related searches

Greenock rapidly became a major port and shipbuilding centre, and though tobacco imported from the colonies was taken to Glasgow by pack horse, the more bulky imports of sugar were processed locally.

In 1868, in what became a cause celebre, seven young Greenock males stowed away on a cargo ship bound for Quebec.

In 1714 Greenock became a custom house port as a branch of Port Glasgow, and for a period this operated from rooms leased in Greenock.

Greenock became a centre of industry, with water power being used to process imported goods.

Greenock's increasing importance and wealth was manifested in the construction of the Greenock Municipal Buildings, whose Victoria Tower, completed in 1886, stands 245 feet tall.

Greenock suffered badly during the Second World War and its anchorage at the Tail of the Bank became the base for the Home Fleet as well as the main assembly point for Atlantic convoys.

On 10 October 1940, RAF Greenock was created as a maintenance base for RAF flying boats.

Greenock thrived in the post-war years but as the heavy industries declined in the 1970s and 1980s unemployment became a major problem, and it has only been in the last ten years with reinvestment and the redevelopment of large sections of the town that the local economy has started to revive.

Greenock reached its population peak in 1921 and was once the sixth largest town in Scotland.

Until 1974, Greenock was a parliamentary burgh in its own right.

Inverclyde Royal Hospital is located in Greenock serving the population of Inverclyde, Largs, the Isle of Bute and the Cowal Peninsula.

Greenock Shipbuilders included: Scotts, Browns, William Lithgows, Fergusons, Head the Boat Builder .

Greenock was a regular port of call for Cunard Line and Canadian Pacific in the 1950s and 1960s.

Greenock is Scotland's best served town in terms of railway stations.

Greenock is served by a number of local bus routes covering the majority of Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow.

Greenock is home to the world's first Burns Club, The Mother Club, which was founded in 1801 by merchants born in Ayrshire, some of whom had known Robert Burns.

In 2012, Greenock became the setting for the BBC television drama Waterloo Road, after the series was relocated from Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

Greenock has featured as the backdrop to several films: the television films Just a Boys' Game, Down Where the Buffalo Go and Down Among the Big Boys and the cinema films Sweet Sixteen, Dear Frankie and Badla .

Greenock is one of the settings for Alan Sharp's 1965 novel A Green Tree in Gedde.

Greenock has featured in the poetry of W S Graham and Douglas Dunn.

Related searches

Greenock is remembered in several placenames in the town, in the library instituted in his memory, and by the original Watt Memorial School building on the site of his birthplace in William Street, which incorporates a commemorative statue.

Pirate William Kidd claimed on death row that he was born in Greenock, but subsequent evidence has shown that he was born either in Belfast or Dundee.

Greenock has 2 successful athletics clubs, Inverclyde AC and Glenpark Harriers.

Greenock's climate is temperate maritime having mainly cool summers and mild winters.

Anecdotally Greenock has a reputation for receiving higher than average rainfall .

Greenock's latitude means long hours of daylight in midsummer with the opposite true in midwinter.