Hunters Quay: A Journey

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Argyll Street is Dunoon’s main street. It starts back at the Castle Gardens incorporating the Queen’s Hall on the left side, but the earliest and still the most effective rise in scale comes, across the street, at the Argyll Hotel. Argyll Street continues to run northwards out of the centre of town. 

Argyll Hotel is One of the earliest hotels in Dunoon which dates to at least 1837, when it was known as the Argyll Inn.
As holidays in Dunoon became de rigeur the Argyll Inn, renamed the Argyll Hotel in 1859, grew more grand, adding a tower designed by the Glasgow architect Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson in 1876. The many changes in interior designs for the hotel reflect the changing fortunes of the town.


                                  
Apart from Castle House one of the most striking landmarks to greet the visitor on arrival at Dunoon is the statue of Mary Campbell, known as ‘Highland Mary’. Mary, the daughter of a sailor, was born in 1764 on the site of Auchamore Farm at the head of Auchamore Road.

Mary succumbed to the dreaded fever and died, aged twenty-two, in October 1786, at a house in Minchollop Close. Mary is buried in the Old West Church Burying Ground in Greenock where, by public subscription, a gravestone was erected and consecrated in 1842, fifty-six years after her death in the town.

It was in 1896, on 21^st July, that the ten-and-a-half-foot statue was unveiled at Dunoon by Lord and Lady Kelvin. The statue had been sculpted by Ratho-born Watson Stevenson (1842-1904) . In 1897 railings were erected around Mary Campbell’s statue to keep out vandals. Highland Mary has become very much associated with Dunoon and has featured on numerous postcards and posters publicising the town as a holiday resort.


  


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                                                     A view of Argyll Street - Dunoon (8AM)

You won't find a shopping mall or Marks and Spencers in Dunoon, what you will find is a traditional high street of independent shops, with a butcher’s and a bakery, deli selling organic cheeses, fresh local eggs and daily fresh Scottish Rolls; and of course there is pubs. 
 

  
      Dunoon Castle Museum. Picture Contributed by Damon                                                              Castle Gardens and Queens Hall




         One of the great things about this town is the wonderful people you meet. 

                                                 Taxi Tours for Dunoon & the Surrouding villages. Click here for details.

 
                                                                                              D u n o o n   C a s t l e   G a r d e n  

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      Dunoon Pier (The starting point for most people visiting Cowal)                             New Link Span looked on by Highland Mary                          


Dunoon Pier: The first pier was erected in 1835 but frequent paddle-steamer traffic needed better facilities and in 1867 Mr Hunter of Hafton House had a larger pier and waiting room built. In 1881 this, in turn, was improved so that the jetty extended almost 400ft from the shore. Fifteen years later the construction of the present two-berth pier was begun. Red-tiled roofs and strongly detailed timber colourfully rehabilitated, 1980-1, Strathclyde Region Architects, in chocolate, cream and yellow. A promenade balcony erected in 1937 has not been renewed, though the much-altered entrance buildings from the Pier Esplanade do remain. 

Caledonian MacBrayne; the famous shipping company whose Head Office is in Gourock, operate a fleet of 28 modern roll on/roll off car and passenger ferries to the islands on the Firth of Clyde and to the Western Isles. The Company was formed in 1973 when David MacBrayne, who operated the shipping services to the Western Isles, combined with Caledonian Steam Packet Company, who operated the shipping services on the Firth of Clyde. The David MacBrayne ‘empire’ has been in existence around the West Coast since 1851 and the Caledonian Steam Packet Company was formed in 1889. The  Caledonian Steam Packet Company was railway owned and David MacBrayne was 50% owned by the railway and 50% by Coastlines Ltd until both companies were taken over by the Scottish Transport Group in 1969. In 1990, Caledonian MacBrayne ceased to be part of the Scottish Transport Group. The Company is now owned by, and is directly responsible to, the Secretary of State for Scotland.



                                                                                                     D u n o o n   P i e r    i n   1 9 0 4

                                                                                 Click here to find accommodation in Dunoon

   
                                            Dunoon Pier                                                                                  The Castle Gardens looking over to Alexandra Parade

  

Dunoon Pier is a fine example of a structure which has stood the test of time and has come to characterise the community which it serves.


                                                                                      Dunoon 1909

                                                    Click here to see a Picture of Dunoon Post Office Staff in 1934. 

  
Provost Gordon Trapp of Dunoon, celebrating a special occasion when in the 2^nd of April 1966, he drove a giant digger which delved out the first sod at the site of new swimming pool in Dunoon (at the junction of Moir Street and Alexandra parade), for which the contractors were Messrs. A. Robertson & Co. Ltd; from Greenock. The operation was performed by Provost Gordon Trapp. Also present at the ceremony were Town Clerk D.W. Anderson; Town Chamberlain  D. B. Buist; Burgh Surveyor  J. F. Fletcher; Judge James Marshall; Messrs. Thomas Smith, Gibb & Pate Architects; A. Robertson, the contractor; Under Secretary for Scotland, Bruce Millan MP, along with Mrs MacFarlane, widow of JP MacFarlane.
Gordon still lives in the house in Hunter’s Quay (above), which he, his wife and his children built some 44 years ago. A traditional Provost’s lamp-post was mounted in front of the gate of the house.  



 
      
     Looking Over to the West Bay from The Castle Gardens                                                             Argyll College in Dunoon

Dunoon has all the attractions of an island without the disadvantages. Because the town is on a peninsula it is possible, without crossing the Clyde, to drive the eighty miles to and from Glasgow through some of Scotland’s finest mountain scenery.

Dunoon is the ‘Gateway to the Western Highland’ and there are still thousands of visitors each year coming to the area from all over the world. For many of them the town is the starting point for a wonderful holiday which provides them with peace and tranquillity in varied, unspoilt and stunningly beautiful countryside.


    
                                     Bullwood - Dunoon                                                                                              St. John's Church in Dunoon       



No school in Scotland, and only Eton in the whole of the United Kingdom, has produced more current and recent members of Parliament than Dunoon Grammar School , and that is with a school role of less than a thousand. Quite incredibly, parliamentarians of such diverse opinions and backgrounds as Ken Livingston, Virginia Bottomley, Brian Wilson, Lord George Robertson and many more, all attended school, at some stage of life, in Dunoon. Perhaps most famously, so too did the late John Smith.                                   

      
                                                                                     Dunoon 1909
                   
                                      Click here to see Snow Pictures of Dunoon during Christmas week.

 
 Dunoon is loved by everyone who visits.                                                               Tell us your Views.