Geograph - photograph every grid square

The Cardross Burn fans out here as it crosses the beach before flowing into the River Clyde. The tall structure visible in the middle distance is a Navigation Trust marker: NS3477 : Clyde Navigation Trust Boundary Cross.

The burn arises from the merging of the Kilmahew and Wallacetown Burns (NS3577 : Kilmahew Burn joins Wallacetown Burn), and is known as the Auchenfroe Burn for most of its length, but as the Cardross Burn on its approach to the shore and the River Clyde (as explained at NS3477 : Moore's Bridge).

However, at the time of writing, some large-scale OS mapping calls it the Kilmahew Burn here, on the approach to the Clyde. That may simply be a mistake; or it may be that usage has changed, or that local writers observed certain naming distinctions that others did not.

For example, writing in 1891 about the Barrs of Burnfoot (in Cardross), historian Donald MacLeod observed that "Robert Barr ... became ferryman at Cardross, and made with his own hands the 'sheuch' down which the Kilmahew Burn now runs, for long known locally as 'the dock'" [pages 82-83 of "Historic Families, Notable People, and Memorabilia of the Lennox"]. The context suggests that the author is referring there, not to the Kilmahew Burn above its meeting with the Wallacetown Burn, but, rather, to the Auchenfroe/Cardross Burn on its approach to the shore. I mention this here not simply in connection with the naming issue referred to above, but also because it provides some information on part of the built heritage of Cardross.