Dance Rothesay Country Dance 5702

It all began with Henry Bell and his Comet, that intrepid little steamship of forty-two feet that made its maiden voyage on the waters of the Clyde on a January day in 1812 and for over eight years carried equally intrepid passengers between Glasgow and Greenock and Helensburgh. By the end of the century a fleet of larger steamers had been built in Clydeside shipyards and they travelled on business and pleasure to all of the ports and piers of the Clyde and its firth, leaving from Glasgow’s Broomielaw, Greenock and Gourock. For a century of summers a day trip for a shilling or two along the “Costa Clyde” was heaven on earth for weary workers eager to exchange the smoke and din of industrial Glasgow for the clean sea air of the resorts “doon the watter”.

The greatest of these resorts was Rothesay on the island of Bute, that Scottish Lido, the “Madeira of the North”. Glaswegians in their thousands, umbrellas furled and hampers bulging, hurried aboard Ivanhoe or Eagle or Madge WIldfire or Jupiter, avid for the excitement awaiting them at glorious Rothesay Bay. There were the sandy beaches, the fun fairs, the dance pavillions, and the famous esplanade. And in the long summer evenings, replete with a picnic lunch and a fish and chips tea, the sounds of amusement still ringing in their ears, they sailed happily back to Glasgow.

Robert III was the first to see the advantages of Rothesay as a summer resort and in 1401 he made it a Royal Burgh. His son, David, was created the first Duke of Rothesay, a title held to this day by the heir of the Sovereign.

Ruined Rothesay Castle, with its moat, fat drum towers and thirty-foot high curtain wall, dates from the 11th century. It was captured by the Norse invaders and recaptured by the Scots at the time of the battle of Largs in 1263. Those royal builders James IV and V added to and embellished the old castle which was attacked and burned in 1685 by Archibald, 9th Earl of Argyll. The castle was given by Robert II to his natural son, John Stewart the Black, and it has remained in the family of the Crichton-Stuart Earls and Marquesses of Bute.