Contributions to the Vale Website

This is a list of contributed articles and stories that people have been kind enough to offer us. We are of course grateful for any such material so if you have anything of interest or you would like to become a contributor please get in touch with us.

We have had a contribution of an excellent "History of the Loch Lomond Steamers". This was written for us by Graham Lappin. Click here to view.

"Bridging the Leven". This was contributed by Gordon Burns - a history of the River Leven's Bridges.

The "Appin Murder" was contributed by William Scobie. It is an interesting tale that offers a local link to this notorious murder, which was featured in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel “Kidnapped”.

India Street is another contribution from William Scobie. This discusses the relationship between the Vale of Leven and India forged through the UTR.

Old Vale of Leven Images; This page offers some unique photographs of the old Vale of Leven. These are of Turnbull's Pyroligneous works at Place of Bonhill, the Dillichip works and Lennoxbank House.

History of the Bonhill Parish Pipe Band; We have added an excellent and highly detailed contribution from Harry Summers. This is a history of the Bonhill Parish Pipe Band from 1931 until 1979.

The Balloch Navy; An account of the “Balloch Navy” was written by Ian Lynn whose grandfather Henry was one of the founders of the boat-hiring and cruise traditions at Balloch and whose father Tommy owned the yard on the east side of the Leven to the north of Balloch Bridge from about 1911 until his death in 1947. Ian worked in the yard at the outbreak of WW2 and this is his recollection of the formation of a small Royal Navy unit to patrol Loch Lomond in the summer of 1940. It was written in June 2005 when he was 85 and sent by Ian from his home in New South Wales, Australia to Graham Hopner of Dumbarton Libraries who has very kindly made it available to the web-site.

Mosaics Aerial Pictures of the Vale of Leven Taken in 1947 -a contributon by Harry Summers. Towards the end of World War 2 the RAF aerial photographic people turned its attention to capturing photographic images of Great Britain itself, which it did between 1944 – 1950 in an undertaking called Project Review. The photographic survey took on the short-hand name of the “Mosaics photographs” since together they built up a mosaic image of the countryside. The Mosaic photographs on this page have been in the possession of Dumbarton Library for some time and we are grateful to Graham Hopner for allowing them to be made available on the web-site. All of the 14 photographs were taken in a few minutes on 16th June 1947. The track of the plane that day was from south to north on the west side of the Leven with a few minor course adjustments on the way - the banking for which shows up on one of the photos.