Shandon, Argyll And Bute
Shandon is 4 miles (6 kilometres) northwest of Helensburgh, 9 miles (14 kilometres) west of Loch Lomond and 33 miles (53 kilometres) northwest of Glasgow city centre. Formerly in the county of Dunbartonshire, it developed alongside other similar settlements in the area, in the 19th century, from a hamlet to a fashionable residential area for wealthy Glasgow merchants and several mansion houses still remain. Shandon Castle and Faslane Castle, dating from the Medieval age once occupied prominent positions in the area.
West Shandon House, built in the 1840s by John Thomas Rochead for Robert Napier, often described as 'the father of Clyde shipbuilding' was a prominent landmark and was renowned for housing Napier's extensive art collection. It later became a hydropathic institution,
Since the 1960s, His Majesty's Naval Base Clyde has been based between the outskirts of Shandon and the village of Garelochhead at Faslane, and it occupies the whole of the former grounds of West Shandon House.
Shandon House, designed by Charles Wilson for William Jamieson, became a reform school named St Andrew's, from 1965 until 1986. It is currently owned by the Ministry of Defence who had plans to make it into accommodation for Royal Marines serving at the Naval Base nearby. It lies behind Faslane Peace Camp, derelict and boarded up.
External links
- West Shandon House
- TURKISH baths at Shandon House in the Helensburgh Heritage
- Media related to Shandon, Argyll at Wikimedia Commons