Nowadays it’s hard to imagine that Trench Point in Campbeltown was home to a thriving shipbuilding industry that dates from 1712. The last yard on the site was Campbeltown Shipyard Ltd, which over the span of its 27 year lifetime employed more than 250 people who, as a team, built almost a hundred fishing boats.
Exploring the abandoned site, now being reclaimed by nature, compounds the need to memorialise the yard’s achievements, to document the stories of the people who worked there, to hear from the skippers who commissioned those Campbeltown built boats and the crews who manned them.
Some of you will know that I made a film a wee while back, The Road to Drumleman, about Argyll Colliery at Machrihanish and followed that on with a SKDT heritage project of the same name, which involved creating an online archive and which culminated in a community exhibition at Glen Scotia Distillery. Many of the stories and images which came to the surface through making the film, and during the subsequent project, would have been lost. I don’t want the stories that surround Campbeltown Shipyard to be lost. With Top Skippers’ Choice we have a great opportunity to come together to make a lasting legacy for future generations to be proud of.
Please get involved.
Jan Nimmo, Project Coordinator
Recent photos taken at Trench Point, the site of Campbeltown Shipyard (June 2019).
Hard to look at……As a young “Commissioning Engineer” i was completely in awe of the mighty Campbeltown Shipyard….
Hi, Be great to hear some shipyard stories from you… and happy to publish these here on the online archive. Just contact me, Jan, at CampbeltownShipyard@skdt.org or on 07981642564