Route 2: The Commercial Clyde

This is the start of Route 2, roughly a thirty minute walk which leads from Lancefield Quay to the Saltmarket and the edge of Glasgow Green.

For many years Glasgow turned its back on the Clyde; it was a working river. Now old warehouses are being transformed into new homes as people choose to live by the water.

What about the Clyde itself? Over centuries it has been dredged and straightened, deepened and constrained. As it runs through the city, in many places it looks and feels more like a canal than a river.

But looks can be deceptive. On this stretch of our walk we meet Minty Donald, an artist and lecturer in theatre studies at Glasgow University, currently exploring how humans relate to rivers.

Minty talks about the river as a living force, the push and pull between humans trying (at times successfully) to harness the Clyde for their own ends, and the river’s refusal to be ‘tamed’.