Old Campbeltown and Machrihanish

Although lying further south than Berwick, remote Campbeltown and Machrihanish have long been thought of as part of the Highlands and have themselves the feel of Highland communities. For much of their history they relied on fishing as the mainstay of the local economy, supplemented by tourism that used to arrive on the Clyde pleasure steamers. These no longer visit and the fishing has been much reduced, but this new history, accompanied by over fifty period photographs, recalls the heyday of the area's prosperity from the late nineteenth century until the 1950s. In those days the old market cross still graced the Main Street and the locomotives of the Campbeltown & Machrihanish Light Railway puffed, unfenced, through the streets. Longrow was still prone to floods, and the Wide Close, the net-drying poles at Dalintober, the barrels of herring waiting at the Old Quay for transportation to Glasgow and beyond, are just some of the fascinating sights also included.