Sticking with Boathouse today. A photo from around 1900 or so. This is Arch Brown, the orchardist who lived at Boathouse, near Blantyreferme. Here in this colourised photo, he’s working with the barrels and fruit baskets which stored the picked fruit from the nearby orchards on the edge of the River Clyde.

Local people may know this area as ‘Boat Jocks’ though its official name it Boatland, the house known at Boathouse. Even in the 1950s and 60s ,there were some remaining fruit trees in the area which would be plundered by kids each Autumn.

Arch Brown died in his 60s, on 23rd April 1912. This hard working man, who endured working in all weather, had lived at Boathouse with his family since around 1874.