Helensburgh
May 2025
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May 2025+
helen Greek (personal name) + burh Old English (a) fortified place. Population - 14,626.
UK
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Scotland
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Argyll and Bute
May 2025+
The old, land-owning laird of Luss, Sir James Colquhoun, no less, kicked all of this off in the 1770s before going on to name it after his missus... 'I've got you a birthday present pet but it's a bit tricky to wrap.'
Right on the Firth of Clyde, he nicked the layout from Edinburgh's New Town with room at the top for the toffs although it's not too shabby at the bottom.
Oh! Hang on! This block is and it looks to be one of the last due for redevelopment, or demolition?
The improvements have been noticed over the years and there was even a Waitrose™ a mile or so east of the centre, now a Morrison™s following urban Argyll & Bute just not buying into the well-to-do brand.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife designed and decorated this National Trust™-run attraction that's in the posh part at the top and where highlights include a banquette and a tiny window - whoo hoo!. Bob was once forced to spend a shamefully wasted, sunny afternoon in May here and yes, it bucketed down the next day.
Argyll & Bute Council have been very busy, sprucing up-wise, although some of it is more required than recommended.
Tidal surges make West Clyde Street prone to flooding and the last Perfect Storm in 2014 created quite a cleaning job. The defences are still under discussion with a metre-high wall suggested to keep this part dry.
That big old obelisk? Why it's only a monument to Henry Bell. Henry Bell? No? SlyBob's never heard of him, neither.
At the time of writing, it feels the world is a very different place. President Trumper has celebrated 100 days of office by not pressing the button just yet and PM Theresa May is attempting to negotiate a Brexit™ with all of the benefits of being in the EU but without having to pay for anything.
Best of luck with that luv, and should that sound inappropriate and condescending, well, she can be a bit can't she? Stranger still, people are now sipping Rioja and eating tapas outside... in Clydeside! The world really has changed.
This just in, Dr Who is a LASSIE!
A pioneering steamship engineer, Henry Bell moved to Helensburgh in 1808 to do some, well, steamship engine pioneering and his paddle steamer the Comet was the first passenger service to run from here to Glasgow in 1812.
His Comet II wasn't so successful, it sank just over the water off Gourock in 1825 and 62 people drowned. With this on his mind, he abandoned the pioneering, drifting like his steamship into oblivion.
Having failed to patent any of his inventions, others simply nicked his ideas and the father of shipbuilding on the Clyde died in Helensburgh, penniless, in 1830.
Fancy, lunchtime fayre and even fancier dining come sundown. Here is where the folk up the hill descend for sophisticated sustenance if romesco sauces get you all excited. Humbler options are available opposite in Humbles Café Bistro, whose outdoor seating gives a closer gawp at the Saturday market in this pedestrianised public square.
The boat in question, by the way, is a shipwrecked cargo vessel, not the Comet, which can be seen looking across to Gourock.
No, the Logie Baird isn't a Wetherspoon™s, despite occupying a former Art Deco cinema on a much nicer spot opposite.
Although they're both buried here, Helensburgh isn't Bell's birthplace but it is Baird's. John Logie Baird invented the television and is renowned worldwide but Bell, as is now known, died without a pot to hiss in.
Spoons have a tradition of naming their pubs based on the history of the place or the old building they invariably inhabit. The inevitable offering in a settlement of this size is called the Henry Bell and it's now known who he was.
There are no awards for the nearly-out-of-date ale but the Director of Contrived Waterhole Branding gets a (3/5) having at least done some homework given the Logie Baird was already taken.
There's a TV in the Logie Baird for your Sky™ Sports but not in the Henry Bell, which doesn't have a steamship, neither. The best they could do, as a nod, is a kettle in the kitchen, probably, and it's a shame it's not located five minutes away on Henry Bell Street, seriously.
As for inside? It's a Wetherspoon™s man!
The excitement of a random tandoori in a random UK town always delivers, as do Masala Twist if you give them a call.
Here, however, will have to wait because it's way too early in the day but this Indian restaurant serves that most conventional of all the curries, Mince and Tatties!
No kidding, and wouldn't it be even tastier with neeps in the naan bread?
Ferries no longer run from wherever it was they ran from nor does the PS Waverley paddle steamer, which is a shame because SlyBob was sure they did.
For that you'll now have to head somewhere like Swanage, or April onwards for a smaller version on Loch Katrine. Not an SS, of course, that would be a Single-screw Steamship, obviously.
You're not missing too much ower the watter, Greenock is best described as post-industrial but you can get to Glasgow by one of, get this, one of Helensburghs's three train stations.
Because of that fact and the wonderful, shoreline location, this was found in 2006 to be the second most expensive town in Scotland, property-wise that is!
The final phase of major redevelopment looks to be the Pierhead, or the bit currently sticking out into the Clyde if you'd rather.
Opening in 2022, a new leisure centre and swimming pool replaced a smaller version although the car park does a pretty good impression of one during unusually high tides.
That'll be goodbye then to the mini funfair, which, when out of season, no amount of screaming would make the Yankee Flyer go any faster.
They could do with the Yankee Flyer back, however, to provide a leisurely diversion. In early 2025, Storm Éowyn, quite literally, blew the roof off the new building and repairs will take at least a year, they say.
These plush, glass-panelled offices are the back of the new headquarters of Argyll & Bute Council.
It's a shame they weren't here in 2011 when this photo was taken, they presumably could have advised one unfortunate individual.
OK, the graffiti's been tweaked a bit, but there looks to have been some kind of ongoing issue with the bins?
Not that they need to worry about that sort of thing up the hill, the hill being the rollercoaster ride in that is the A818, an up-and-down alternative to the low road from Dumbarton. It's off here the swankier dwellings with their generous verges confirm Helensburgh's pricey property claim.
This area of chiefly Victorian additions came at the same time as the standout Victoria Halls, still functioning as Helensburgh's main source of entertainment, as if watching leisure roofs blow off wasn't enough?
Hermitage Park offers a more relaxing setting than a windy waterfront and isn't nearly as big as it looks from the outside. Acquired by the town off some old mill-owning toffs or other, this too has had recent improvements, including colourful shrubbery and a first-rate War Memorial.
'Malig' or 'Millig' Mill actually named that toon before Colquhoun conquered and dates from the same time, but council funding only goes so far so restoration of the ruins, not shown, is unlikely.
If the lug up Sinclair Street is initially off-putting and you've time for a wander, head west from town to the cricket and rugby club where there's a path through some woodland.
The Friends of Duchess Wood manage this small, local nature reserve, maintaining the trails that lead up and ultimately deliver you, under a railway line, into Helensburgh's fancy residential.
The housing is actually fairly close to Hill House, if a rare, sunny afternoon in May needs to be shamefully wasted. There's a banquette and a tiny window, remember? - whoo hoo!