Town in Inverclyde, Scotland
Gourock
A town where sailors and brides once circled a standing stone seven times for luck, and where you can still swim outdoors in a heated pool beside the Clyde.
Key information
- County
- Inverclyde
- Nation
- Scotland
- Known for
- Granny Kempock Stone, the Dunoon ferry, a heated outdoor pool, Clyde sailing
- What locals are called
- Gourockians
- Famous people
- Thomas Smith
About Gourock
The stone you had to walk round seven times
Up on Kempock Street stands a lumpy grey standing stone about six feet tall, known as Granny Kempock. It is probably thousands of years old, and for centuries it was Gourock's good-luck charm. Fishermen's wives and departing sailors were said to walk round it seven times, often carrying sand or small stones and reciting a rhyme, to ask for fair weather and a safe return. Newly married couples did the same for a happy marriage. The stone has a darker reputation too. A witchcraft trial in 1662 linked it to alleged dancing with the devil, and the Kirk was not amused. Locals still treat it with affection, and the seven-lap tradition has never quite died out.
The town built for doon the watter
Gourock sits right where the Firth of Clyde opens out, and that shaped everything. When the railway reached the town's pier in 1889, Glasgow families could be on the coast in under an hour. Gourock became a gateway for the Clyde steamers that carried holidaymakers "doon the watter" to Dunoon, Rothesay and beyond. Piers, tearooms and handsome villas along the shore followed. The ferry habit stuck. Today the CalMac passenger service from Gourock still crosses to Dunoon in about twenty minutes, and the pier remains one of the Clyde's busiest crossing points. The paddle steamer Waverley offers Clyde excursions from nearby Greenock's Custom House Quay, a very different kind of sailing day.
A swimming pool with a sea view
Gourock Outdoor Pool has been drawing swimmers to the waterfront since it first opened in 1909. It is heated, which matters a great deal in a country where the Clyde in March is not for the faint-hearted. Swimming lengths in the open air with the firth just beyond the wall, ferries sliding past and hills on the far shore, is one of the more unlikely pleasures in west Scotland. Few British towns still have an outdoor pool with a view like this, and locals are fiercely proud of it.
Yachts, lighthouses and a very busy water
The water off Gourock has long been a place to sail rather than just cross. The Royal Gourock Yacht Club, founded in 1894, runs racing and cruising from the town, and its boats share the firth with ferries, naval traffic and the occasional huge ship heading upriver. Just along the coast towards Inverkip, Cloch Lighthouse has been guiding vessels since 1797. It was designed by Thomas Smith, an Edinburgh lamp-maker who became the first engineer of the Northern Lighthouse Board and stepfather of Robert Stevenson, of the famous lighthouse-building family. The lighthouse marks the point where the Clyde narrows and turns, a spot every captain needed to get right.
A seaside town with a working edge
Gourock was never only a day-trip resort. Shipping, rope-making and the Clyde's industrial life ran through the area, and the town's neighbours, Greenock and Port Glasgow, were among the great shipbuilding centres of Scotland. Rope made under the Gourock name went to ships around the world. In the twentieth century the firth also took on a naval role, with Royal Navy and American submarine activity in the nearby sea lochs. Gourock's pier and rail link made it a useful transport hub for it all. The result is a town that feels like a holiday resort on one side and a working harbour on the other. Walk the promenade on a clear day and you can see Dunoon, Cowal and the Argyll hills, with a ferry always coming or going.