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Fairfield Heritage
and Shipbuilding Museum is 3 miles southwest of
Glasgow centre at Govan, Postcode: G51 4XS,
Free to visit, donations welcome.
The Red Tour Buses run to
the Riverside Museum just across the River by
Footbridge.
For Images on Mobile swipe right
There is a scenic Riverside Walk from
Glasgow centre out to the Science Centre, then to the Clydeside Distillery, then to
the Riverside Museum half of a mile
west of the Distillery, then to the Goven
Stones in Govan Church, then to this Fairfield
Museum a short walk west of the Church, then
there are many inexpensive buses from Govan 3
miles back to the city centre, a great day
walking.
Fairfield began building Ships at Govan in
1861, soon becoming the largest ship builders
in the world, building Battleships, Aircraft
Carriers, Liners and every type of Transport
Ship from the time.
There have been over 25,000 ships built on
the River Clyde since the first yard opened in
1712, not sure how many were built at
Fairfield?
Ships were built right in Govan Centre by
Fairfield and Harland & Wolf with 13 slips
between the two companies for building huge
ships.
At Fairfield:
The largest Battleship was the 42,000 ton
HMS Howe
completed in 1941.
Largest Aircraft Carrier was the 32,000 ton
HMS Implacable
completed in 1944.
Largest Liner was the 26,032 ton SS Empress of
Japan completed in 1930.
Three Graving Docks were built just up-river
where the Glasgow Tower is now, as seen in the
image bottom right from the Tower. The largest
Graving Dock here is 880 feet long, 115 feet
wide.
The Graving Docks / Dry Docks were used for
painting the underside of ships and
repairs.
Old Image of
the Fairfield 6 large Building Slips, Fitting
out Basin, huge Workshops, and Govan Old
Church.
The area where the vast SEC entertainment
complex is now, was the Queens Dock that was
always full of large Cargo Ships, bottom right
of the bottom image, across from the Glasgow
Tower.
This Dock was filled in with stone from the
old St Enoch Station Hotel that was demolished
in 1977.
Large Image of
the Queens Dock looking west to Govan showing
just how busy this area was with shipping up to
the 1970s. The Rotunda building is all that
remains, the round building bottom left in the
image that is now a Restaurant.
The area where the Riverside Museum is now,
across the river from Govan, was a shipyard
named A&J Ingles
that closed in 1962.
Large Image of
A&J Ingles and other shipbuilders all
around Govan that seems to show at least 20
large Ships could have been built at the same
time in one small area at Govan.
John Brown
Shipyard was the most known shipyard on the
Clyde, as they built the huge liners Queen Mary
1936, Queen Elizabeth 1940 and QE2 1969, with
Queen Elizabeth
being 83,000 tons, 1,031 feet long, 118 feet
wide, largest passenger ship built until larger
Cruise Ships were built from 1996.
John Brown's was located at Clydebank, 4
miles west of Govan, where the river is wider
and there is a tributary named the River Cart
where the longest ships were launched for extra
room. Large Image
John Brown's opened in 1851, closed in 1986,
Wiki Page
The largest Dry Dock
on the Clyde is at Greenock at 1,000 feet long,
145 feet wide.
All the large Cargo Ships now dock at
Greenock, 22
miles west of Govan, at the mouth of the River
Clyde.
The two large Cranes you see next to the
Clyde, one at the Squinty Bridge and another
where John Brown's was in Clydebank, were used
to lift real heavy objects such as Steam Trains
for export onto Ships, and to lift the huge
Engines into new built Ships.
After World War II in 1945 - ship building
on the Clyde slowed due to vast debts the UK
ran up funding the war.
1960s - saw a further decline in ship
building on the Clyde as more countries around
the world began competing for orders of new
ships, forcing many companies on the Clyde to
close.
Some other countries were fast to adopt
building ships in modules, then connecting the
modules together to complete the ships, a
faster and less expensive way to build
ships.
Today - there are just three ship builders
left on the Clyde, Fairfield at Govan now part
of BAE Systems that
mainly build Warships for the Royal Navy,
Yarrow now also
part of BAE Systems building Warships, and
Ferguson Marine
that mainly build Ferries for the Scottish
Island routes.
Fairfield Govan built some sections of the
two 72,000 ton Aircraft Carriers, HMS Queen
Elizabeth 2017, and HMS Prince of Wales
2019. These ships were completed at Rosyth by
Edinburgh.
There used to be 19 large ship builders
employing around 70,000 workers. The population
of Govan reached 95,000 in 1907, down to 27,000
by 2022.
The Clyde was the largest ship building area
in the World by far, producing 23% of the
worlds ships in 1913, with an endless supply of
Steel and Coal from around Scotland to allow
such a vast operation, also vast numbers of
workers prepared to work in real harsh
conditions.
List of the Largest Ships built on
the River Clyde.
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