📌 Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire
★★
From the outside, the Dumbarton outpost of the Scottish Maritime Museum looks small and insignificant. In reality, it’d be difficult to overstate its importance in shipbuilding history. From the back of the building, the Denny Tank stretches for a hundred metres to the south. This was the world’s first commercial ship testing tank, in which scaled-down versions of countless ships underwent trials prior to construction. The tank’s applications continued beyond conventional boats: hovercrafts and even helicopters both partially owe their existence to the Denny Brothers, who also built the Cutty Sark. The museum itself is reasonably small, reflected by the smaller admission charge compared to the main site in Irvine, and comprises mainly the various stages in constructing wax models for testing. The photographs documenting the town’s transformation as shipbuilding declined are also fascinating.
🌍 Location
📌 Castle Street, Dumbarton town centre
🧭 O.S. Grid Reference: NS 400752
🛰️ GPS coordinates: 55.943468,-4.562922
🚆 Dumbarton Central 🚌 Bus to Dumbarton
🚗 Car park
📝 Key info
⌚ Monday to Saturday
🎫 £5 adult / free for accompanied children
