CLOCH LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER’S HOUSE PROPOSED WINDOW ALTERATIONS: DESIGN & CONSERVATION STATEMENT for Duncan Telfer the Firth of Clyde ©StewartBremner Firth of the Clyde & Cloch CONTENTS 1 LOCATION 3 2 HISTORY 4 3 ANALYSIS 8 4 SITE APPRAISAL 9 5 PROPOSALS 10 6 CONCLUSIONS 14 7 REFERENCES 14 8 APPENDICES: STATUTORY LISTING 14 SITE PHOTOS 15 Fig. 1 North view from the road ©Dave Souza via Wikipedia 2 Cloch Lighthouse Keeper’s House. Window Design & Conservation Statement, December 2020 1 LOCATION Fig. 2 Location of Cloch Lighthouse © Bing Cloch lighthouse with its three keeper’s houses, collection of outbuildings and jetty sits prominently on the rocky foreshore of historic Cloch point. It is positioned at the edge of historic woodland on the East bank of the Firth of Clyde on the A770 west of Gourock, and directly across the water from Dunoon. To the south-east is the A78 and the Greenock - Wemyss Bay railway line through Spango valley. Historically within the County of Renfrewshire and Parish of Inverkip, Cloch now lies within the local authority of Inverclyde. Fig. 3 Aerial view of Cloch Lighthouse and environs, 2014 © Canmore Cloch Lighthouse Keeper’s House. Window Design & Conservation Statement, December 2020 3 2 HISTORY Relatively little is known about Cloch's history before the lighthouse. However, a bronze axe-head recovered by Ardgowan House nearby suggests that the area has been inhabited for over 4,000 years1. The promontory itself was certainly of importance as a landmark: the ‘Point’ and ‘stane’ feature on many early maps and documents, and is cited as the termination of both the Clyde as a river and the jurisdiction of the ‘water bailie of Glasgow’2. Hamlets nearby took their name from their proximity: Little Cloagh Cloachmoor, Meikle Clauch. The area formed part of the ancient lands of the Stewart family, with ‘The Cloch’ marking the northernmost boundary of Ardgowan, established 1404, still held today by the Stewart family. Slightly north by the ‘stane’ was a public ferry and Fig. 4 Roy Military Map - Highlands, c.1750 ©NLS house serving the 5-mile Clyde crossing to Dunoon. Once an important route to the West Highlands, by 1840 it simply transported cattle following the introduction of the Gourock steamboat service. The 1750 Roy map suggests an older ferry service once existed south of the Point, and shows the Gourock road terminating at the ‘new’ ferry as the land by the Point was an impassable steep, rocky hillside. 2.2 THE LIGHTHOUSE The lighthouse and its supporting buildings have seen many alterations in the years since 1796, summarised in the image below: Fig. 5 Chronology of development, BTA 2020 1 www.ardgowandistillery.com/en/home 2 J Leighton “Strath-Clutha, or the Beauties of the Clyde”, Joseph Swan, 1840, pi & p215 4 Cloch Lighthouse Keeper’s House. Window Design & Conservation Statement, December 2020 Established in 1756 for “rendering the Navigation in the Frith and River of Clyde more safe and commodious”3, The Clyde Lighthouses Trust began work on Cloch, its second lighthouse, in 1792, completed 1796. Designed and erected under supervision of Architect James Clarkson, the lighthouse sits 80’ high above water level. Engineers Thomas Smith and Robert Stevenson supplied the oil-lantern and reflectors, and keepers had to regularly hand-wind the mechanism. A single keeper's house sat behind the tower on the Eastern side, and a new shore road was cut into the hillside to serve it. Cloch quickly became a local landmark, Fig. 6 ‘The Cloch’ by A Wilson c.1830s (part): 1 keeper appearing in many paintings and documents. ©McLeanMuseum; small community likely to be artistic license as unsupported by contemporary documents. Fig. 7 ‘A Royal Navy frigate caught in a squall off the Cloch lighthouse’ Fig. 8 ‘Shipping off the Cloch Lighthouse’ by William Clark 1837, by John Knox c.1822 (part) ©Kelvingrove (part) via Mutual Art.com Early paintings of the original 1796 building seem to show the single Keeper’s house footprint not much wider than the tower, with simple end-gabled flat-topped skews and chimney stacks of four flues on each gable end and no roof dormers. The South gable had a larger window upstairs than down, whilst the North had a single ground window. The single link had a single-pitch roof and chimney. Externally, a low-walled garden appears to the north from the 1830s. Fig. 9 by William Clark 1837, (part) Fig. 10 ‘Barque Kilblain becalmed off Cloch’ by Fig. 11 drawn J.Fleming, engr.J.Swan, c1830, via Mutual Art.com William Clark c.1830, (part) ©McLeanMuseum (part), ’Select Views on the River Clyde’. 3 George Blake “Clyde Lighthouses”, Jackson, son & company, 1956, p1- initially called the Cumray Lighthouse Trust. Cloch Lighthouse Keeper’s House. Window Design & Conservation Statement, December 2020 5 Watch system changes saw the house divided and extended c.1850 to accommodate two keepers and their families, growing full height at each gable-end with a lower eastern story-and- half building towards the road. Significantly, all chimneys were relocated to the long side walls. An upstairs window was added to the north gable and the link roof made dual-pitch. Architecturally, the language became ornate: flat copes became decorative moulded crowsteps, windows were given moulded hoods and rebuilt chimneys a stepped profile and band mouldings. Two contemporary sketches (figs. 12 & 13) miss the SE chimney-gable and show an upper window to the NE, but contemporary photos show the building as it is now, and the entire eastern extension and its gable were unlikely to not have been part of the 1850 reconfiguration. Fig. 12 by James Chalmers c.1850 (part) ©McLean Museum; Fig. 13 by Richard Lane 1869 (part), ‘based on a sketch’, via before outbuildings on foreshore. Upper roadside E window WorthPoint.com & ebay. Lower S chimney gable shown as flagpole: artist wrong and may have been added for balance. may have missed as is on contemporary photos. The 1850s first edition OS map shows this enlarged building plus outbuildings against the high- level road back from the shoreline, remaining today as low walls. The next 1896 edition has an outbuilding configuration like today’s: by the shore and none by the road. The jetty appears on images c.1880 and is probably contemporary with the foreshore buildings, and the largest animal enclosure was converted to a boat house c.1935. Fig. 14 OS 1st Ed. c.1855: 2 keepers, roadside out-b. ©NLS Fig. 15 OS 2nd Ed. c.1896: seaward out-b, engine & whistle rms. ©NLS A steam fog-whistle was built on the NW terrace in 1874 at the lighthouse base, and replaced 1895-7 by a compressed air fog-horn on the seaward side of the tower powered by oil engines in a story-and-half brick engine room linked to the north house4. The engine building’s flat roof was replaced with a metal truss-tied hipped roof in 1960 alterations; the house connection and terrace building were probably removed around this time (certainly after the 1948 OS Map). Remains of the terrace building exist in the sea-wall construction and the tower's render coat. 4 From ‘The Engineer’, p615, December 29th, 1895 (via ebay) 6 Cloch Lighthouse Keeper’s House. Window Design & Conservation Statement, December 2020 Fig. 16 North side showing steam whistle c.1890 (pt) ©Alamy stock Fig. 17 Photo showing new fog-horn c.1920 (part) ©Canmore Due to its key strategic position on the Clyde, the lighthouse was an important military position in both World Wars. A military battery was built on the hillside above in 19165 to cover the Clyde anti- submarine net strung across to Dunoon during both World Wars from two tethering points located on the foreshore away from the lighthouse: both are Scheduled Monuments. Fig. 18 Anti-submarine nets at Cloch ©WarHistoryOnline Fig. 19 Clyde view c.1904 - foghorn, engine room + link & steam building visible; hillside height reduced ©Frances Frith Collection The Port Authority sold the three keeper's houses in 1986, when Gourock-born Duncan Telfer bought the North house, followed by the adjacent northern land comprising the outbuildings, boat house & jetty in 1996. Photos up to c.1970s show roofs on all the outbuildings in some disrepair. Mr Telfer re-roofed the boat house and preserved the remaining walls. In 2001, he converted the redundant engine room to domestic use and re-linked it to the main house to a design agreed with the Council, HS & NTS. Today, the tower’s light has been replaced by a fully automated and unmanned light mounted on a pole outside the lantern room. 5 World War One Audit Project, 2013 - canmore.org.uk/site/106364/clyde-defences-cloch-point-battery Cloch Lighthouse Keeper’s House. Window Design & Conservation Statement, December 2020 7 3 ANALYSIS Fig. 20 Aerial view from North (South at top of image), 2019 ©Paisley Buddie Drone, via YouTube IMPORTANCE OF PROPERTY It is clear that Cloch point has been an important local landmark for a very long time, and the lighthouse is iconic to local communities and anyone who has travelled on or around the Clyde. The Lighthouse is B-listed and significant as one of the most iconic lighthouses to have aided navigation on the Clyde for purposes of leisure, trade, emigration, and war. By design, it dominates the views all around. The Light Keeper’s housing and outbuildings are less significant. Their position below the road and its wall obscures the land-ward view, with only roofs, chimneys and gables visible. From the sea, the houses are set-back and mostly hidden by the tower, and would have been even less visible when unpainted prior to 1930s.