RAILWAY INN, BOWLING
https://w3w.co/areas.carriage.pass
ACCESS : Easy access to the building although it is closed. But this is also the entrance to the station and there is a footbridge over the line from which you can get to the harbour. index.asp?pageid=715954
The building has been boarded up and on the market for years. So why is it being included here? After all it has little architectural merit and is not listed.
Well it was a favourite watering hole in its day. Bowling Station is generally bypassed by trains adn this amongst other reasons have led to it faltering and then failing as a business. It certainly does have some sentimental value to locals and visitors over the years.
This inn building still hints at better times. Not only did it support the local community and those using the station, but it also served those using the Clyde and the Forth and Clyde Canal as means of transport. Sustainance and often overnight accommodation could be tide and wind dependent. Access to the shipping on the river and in turn access by shipping to the sea was havily affect by the timetable dictated by the tides and hindered by bad weather. An inn such as this almost on the dockside and alongside the station as well as so near the Canal as it met the Clyde was very well placed.
We may not think much of the inn as a building now, but it represents a very different scenario of yesterday.
GEOGRAPH - Stephen Sweeny : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Railway_Inn,_Bowling_-_geograph.org.uk_-_326593.jpg
Thomas Nugent : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_railway_Inn_-_geograph.org.uk_-_712891.jpg