River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river of western Scotland and the third-longest in the country at about in length. Its river network extends to 4,244 km and drains a basin of 1,903 km2, expanding to 3,854 km2 when the Clyde estuary system with the Kelvin, White Cart, Black Cart and Leven is included. Around 1.79 million people, 33.8% of Scotland's population, live within this catchment. The river rises in the Lowther Hills and flows north-west through South Lanarkshire and Glasgow before entering the Firth of Clyde.
From the late 18th century the upper estuary and river through Glasgow were systematically engineered using groynes, longitudinal training walls and continuous dredging, and by removing rocky obstructions such as a large part of the Elderslie Rock. This was done to enable ocean-going access and support Glasgow's rise as a world centre of shipbuilding and marine engineering in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Since the late 20th century commercial deep-water functions have migrated down the estuary to naturally deep sites at Greenock, Finnart and Hunterston, while the upper river corridor has seen major regeneration in Glasgow. Environmental quality has improved from historic industrial lows, though legacy contaminants and periodic low-oxygen episodes in the outer firth have been reported.
Etymology
The earliest attested form of the name Clyde is Klōta, recorded by the 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy in his Geographia. The river appears as Clota in the work of the Roman historian Tacitus, referring to the Firth of Clyde in his account of Agricola's campaigns. Among Brittonic-speaking inhabitants, the river was known as Clut or Clud, forms preserved in the medieval names Alt Clut and Ystrad Clud. The modern form Clyde derives from these Brittonic names, later passing through Gaelic as Cluaidh. W. J. Watson, Alan G. James, and Ranko Matasović connect the hydronym with a Common Brittonic or Proto-Celtic root Cloutā / Clōtā associated with "washing" or "cleansing"; compare the Indo-European root klū- "wash, clean", also seen in Latin cluēre "to cleanse, purify". Modern Scottish place-name authorities likewise interpret Clota as "the cleanser" or "the pure one." Watson argued in 1926 that Clota was originally the name of a river goddess personifying the Clyde. Later writers on Celtic religion, such as James MacKillop, note this as a plausible but speculative interpretation, consistent with the wider tradition of rivers in Celtic Europe being associated with female tutelary deities, however no direct inscriptions or contemporary evidence for a goddess named Clota survive.History
Prehistory
Humans have settled along the Clyde since the Paleolithic era. Artifacts dating from 12,000 BC have been found near Biggar, a rural town close to the river. Biggar is home to an archeological site at which Britain's most ancient artifacts have been unearthed. Prehistoric canoes, used by ancient peoples for transport or trade, have been found in the river. There are a number of Mesolithic sites along the Clyde, especially in the Upper Clyde Valley. Permanent settlements and structures, including what is believed to be a temple to moon gods in Govan, were constructed in the area during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Celtic art, language, and other aspects of culture began spreading to the area from the south during this period, and prehistoric artifacts suggest that, by around 1000 BCE, they had become the dominant cultural influences there.Ancient history
Before the legions of the Roman Empire arrived in southern Scotland, the river and surrounding area had been settled by the Brythonic-speaking Damnonii tribe. It has been suggested that a Damnonii town called Cathures was located there and was the precursor to modern Glasgow. The Damnonii tribe originally likely distributed power among individual chiefdoms, but at some point before 500 AD the political framework was a British culture of Welsh speakers that was politically unified and formed a centralised kingdom known as Alt Clut, representing the power centre at Dunbarton Rock.None of the documentary or archaeological evidence from the period when the Roman legions arrived suggests that battles took place in the area. Therefore the Roman legions and Damnonii tribespeople are assumed to have been on good terms and to have co-operated by means of trade and the exchange of military information. The Romans did, however, construct several forts in the area, notably on the banks of the Clyde. These include Castledykes, Bothwellhaugh, and Old Kilpatrick and Bishopton. The Romans also constructed several roads along the river, both small ones and larger ones designed to be used as trade routes and to carry entire legions. The Antonine Wall, which lies only a few miles from the river, was constructed later by the Romans as a means of defending the area against invasion by the Picts. Despite the strategic location and flat terrain of Glasgow and the surrounding Clyde basin, no Roman civilian settlement was ever constructed. Instead, the region may have functioned as a frontier zone between the Roman province known as Britannia Inferior and the Caledonians, an indigenous group that was hostile to the Romans.
Kingdom of Strathclyde
Strathclyde was founded as an independent unified British kingdom, quite some centuries after the Roman occupation of Britain. The kingdom's core territory and much of its arable land was located around the Clyde basin in the area traditionally associated with Alt Clut. The kingdom was ruled from its original capital, the near impenetrable Alt Clut fortress, which was situated on the river and overlooked much of the estuary. This fortress was noteworthy enough to have been referred to at the time in several letters and poems about Sub-Roman Britain, written by Gildas and others. Strathclyde remained a powerful kingdom during the early medieval period in Britain. It was also a reservoir of native Welsh culture: Its territory expanded along the Clyde Vae Southern Uplands and Ayrshire, and eventually southwards into Cumbria.Govan Old Parish Church originated in the 5th or 6th century. In the 7th century, Saint Mungo established a new Christian community on the banks of the Molendinar Burn, a tributary of the Clyde, potentially replacing Cathures if this is assumed to have occupied the same locus. This community was the beginnings of what would become the city of Glasgow. Several villages along the Clyde that were founded in or before this period have endured to this day, and have grown to become towns, including Llanerc, Cadzow, and Rhynfrwd. The fortress of Altclut fell in the Siege of Dumbarton of 870 AD, when a force of Norse-Irish raiders from the Kingdom of Dublin sacked it. After that, the kingdom, now politically weakened, possibly moved its capital to Govan. However, it never fully recovered, and in the 11th century it was annexed by the Kingdom of Alba. It did however retain some autonomy under the Church of Glasgow, which became the secular successors of much of the territory when it was treated as a Principality of the Scottish Crown.
Medieval and early modern history
In the 13th century, Glasgow, then still a small town, built its first bridge over the river Clyde. This was an important step in its ability to eventually grow into a city. The establishment, in the 15th century, of both the University of Glasgow and the Archdiocese of Glasgow, vastly increased the importance of the town within Scotland. From the early modern period onwards, the Clyde began to be used commercially as a trade route; trade between Glasgow and the rest of Europe became commonplace. In the centuries that followed, the Clyde became increasingly vital to both Scotland and Britain as a major trade route for exporting and importing resources.Port authority
The was initially formed in 1840 by the ', and then reconstituted under the '. The replaced the Clyde Navigation Trust with the Clyde Port Authority from 1 January 1966, which has since been renamed to 'Clydeport', and was privatisated in 1992. In 2003 it was acquired by Peel Holdings.Course
The Clyde is formed by the confluence of two streams, the Daer Water and the Potrail Water. The Southern Upland Way crosses both streams before they meet at Watermeetings to form the River Clyde proper. At this point, the Clyde is only from Tweed's Well, the source of the River Tweed, and is about the same distance from Annanhead Hill, the source of the River Annan. From there, it meanders northeastward before turning to the west, where its flood plain serves as the site of many major roads in the area, then reaches the town of Lanark, where the late 17th- and early 18th-century industrialists David Dale and Robert Owen built mills and the model settlement of New Lanark on the banks of the Clyde. The mills harnessed the power of the Falls of Clyde, the most spectacular of which is Cora Linn. A hydroelectric power station still generates 11MW of electricity there today, although the mills have now become a museum and World Heritage Site.The river then makes its way northwest, past the towns of Wishaw to the east of it and Larkhall to the west of it. The river's surroundings here become increasingly suburban. Between the towns of Motherwell and Hamilton, the course of the river has been altered to create an artificial loch within Strathclyde Park. Part of the original course can still be seen: It lies between the island and the eastern shore of the loch. The river then flows through Blantyre and Bothwell, where the ruined Bothwell Castle stands on a defensible promontory.
As it flows past Uddingston and into the southeastern part of Glasgow, the river begins to widen, meandering through Cambuslang, Rutherglen, and Dalmarnock, and past Glasgow Green. From the Tidal Weir westwards, the river is tidal: a mix of fresh and salt water.
Over three centuries the river has been engineered and widened as it passes through Glasgow city centre towards the open sea. Shipping and shipbuilding developed in Glasgow and its neighbouring industrial burghs of Govan and Partick; with the Clyde, including its lower reaches, becoming for a time the leading centre of world shipbuilding.
The river then flows west, out of Glasgow, past Renfrew, under the Erskine Bridge, and past Dumbarton on the northern shore and the sandbank at Ardmore Point between Cardross and Helensburgh. Opposite, on the southern shore, is the last remaining Lower Clyde shipyard, at Port Glasgow. The river continues on past the port of Greenock to the Tail of the Bank, where the river merges into the Firth of Clyde. Here at the mouth of the Clyde, there is currently a significant ecological problem of oxygen depletion in the water column.