Published on:
02
November 2009
The historic anchor at the top of Alloa's High Street shipped out last week (Friday).
The heavy cast iron piece is being moved as part of the Imagine Alloa town centre regeneration project. Contractors lifted the anchor away to storage where it will be cleaned up before being place in its new home at Limetree Walk.
The anchor was part of the first tank landing ships manufactured in Alloa.
The area at the top of High Street is being completely reworked, with the difficult cobbles replaced by top quality stone. Many of the changes are being done in response to requests from disabled groups since the current site is difficult to walk on. The hope is the improved High Street will include a performance area, new seating arrangements and a landmark piece of public art.
A special ceremony to mark the arrival of the anchor at the Limetree Walk is planned later this year. The Council hopes to add some feature lighting to the anchor when it moves to its new home.
The anchor was placed at the top of the High Street by Clackmannan District Council in 1993, to make sure the role of shipyards in Alloa during the Second World War would not be forgotten. A key person was Jim Wright of Clackmannan, who worked as an electric welder at McLeod & Sons, Forth Street during the war and until the 1960s.
McLeod &Sons converted and refitted some 300 vessels of all kinds, including Merchant and Royal Navy ships. Vessels were fitted with concrete (later plastic) protection and guns; trawlers were converted to minesweepers and liners were altered to troop carriers, hospitals and armed merchant cruisers.
Tank landing craft were built at Sir William Arrol's Shipyard at Kelliebank and at the Motherwell Bridge and Engineering Co. at Forthbank Shipyard. Many were later overhauled or converted by McLeod & Sons and took part in the D-Day landings on 6th June 1944.
The anchor was placed specifically to commemorate all of the work done in Alloa for the liberation of Europe.
The Clackmannanshire Alliance, led by the Council, worked with Clackmannanshire Business and Alloa Town Centre BID to successfully secure £2million from the Scottish Government's regeneration fund earlier this year. Together with additional money from Fairer Scotland, the town centre is set to benefit from a massive £2.4 million investment. A condition of the funding is that the money is spent between now and the end of next March 2010.