Most people enter the SECC by the main east entrance (beside the crane and the rotunda). A short walk across the car park from the west door is this building:
It currently houses The Clydeside Distillery which has a shop, a bar and tours of the distillery (website).
When Queen’s Dock was built in the 1870s, one of the modern features was hydraulic power for cranes and for the swing bridge across the entrance to the dock. The machinery was in a building at the entrance to the dock (photo credit: lyonandturnbull.com auctions, link)
Time for a brief physics lesson – I’m indebted the excellent website janesketching.com (link) from which I have taken this explanation, written to explain the operation of canal lock gates but equally applicable to cranes on the dock in Glasgow:
“Hydraulic power is a way of transmitting energy from one place to another.
The problem … was that steam engines could generate motive force, but only where they were. You could build a big powerful steam engine, but you couldn’t put a steam engine next to every crane, capstan, or set of lock gates. You also didn’t want to fire up a steam engine every time someone wanted to use the lock gates. So you had to find a way of transmitting the power from the steam engine to the machinery which used it. And you had to find a way of storing the power so it was available on demand. Before the use of electricity was common, power was transmitted using pressurized water.
The steam engine located in [the accumulator building] was used to pump water into the adjacent accumulator tower, by lifting a heavy weight. The heavy weight was a neat fit on top of the water inside the tower and pushed the water down. Water does not compress. So the weight just sat there, applying pressure to the water. The pressurised water was distributed around the docks in thick cast-iron pipes. When the lock-keeper wanted to operate the lock gates they opened a tap and the force of the pressurized water opened the gates. Then they closed the taps. Far away, the weight moved down very slightly in the accumulator tower. Eventually the steam engine was used to pull the weight up to the top again.
That’s 19th century hydraulic power. Power is transmitted by pressurised water in cast-iron pipes: the original, functional, steam-punk.”
Sadly, there are few photos of the tower set alongside ships entering or exiting the dock. This photo is from around the time the dock closed in the late 1960s- the channel on the left is the main entrance/exit to the dock from the Clyde:
© Copyright: HES (Papers of Professor John R Hume, economic and industrial historian, Glasgow, Scotland)
This undated photo is clearly from some time in the decades after closure:
To the west of the accumulator house, the riverside is fenced off and strewn with rubble (Google Street View, 2023):
This was – is – Yorkhill Quay; the modern building at the far end is the Riverside Museum (link) which houses Glasgow’s transport history and is free to entry (although you are encouraged to contribute).
Here is the equivalent view on 3rd August 1965:
In the photo above, the accumulator house (distillery) is behind the camera. If you note the railway tracks in the foreground, they can be seen again in this more modern photo:
In the next photo I have ringed the accumulator house in red (and continue to do this whenever it appears in posts for the rest of the post in the hope this will allow you to get your bearings). In the previous black and white photo we were looking up the quay to where the two large ships are moored:
The quay was originally built in 1868 and included a lairage (facility for import and export of live animals). It was rebuilt in 1906 at a cost of £282,000, as the demand for quayside space continued to exceed supply. A basin (the inlet just above the two ships moored at the quay in the photo above) was added in 1909.
As in the Queens Dock, the quayside sheds were single storey sheds.
The following photo was presumably inside one of the sheds, showing the master porterage team of James Spencer and Company on 19th October 1926:
While general cargo was landed here, the Quay was best known for passenger liners. In 1911 the allocation of berths at the quay was: 1&2 Anchor Line; 3, 4 and 5 Anchor Line USA traffic (including whisky); 6&8 A Holt and Co for Australia and China; 7&9 General Traffic
In August 1924, the Anchor Line ship Cameronia was berthed here:
One month earlier, and it’s a different ship (even I can count the number of funnels!):
1947
1955
Also 1955
Undated but quite possibly on the same river-trip as the previous photo in 1955:
Note the rather odd looking craft on the left is a ferry between Partick (on the left) and Govan (on the right). The cabin is on top of the superstructure and the vehicle deck can be raised or lowered depending on the tide so that wheeled vehicles could drive straight on from the quayside.