The park is at the foot of Dumbarton Rock, on the Rock's southern side. Part of the south-west side of the Rock, and of its curtain wall (
NS3974 : Dumbarton Castle: western curtain wall), can be seen in the right background.
See
NS3974 : Pier Park for another view.
The pier after which the park is named is long gone, but it used to begin at a point further ahead, roughly where the path changes direction.
Dumbarton Pier was not a great success. It was "shortened to meet the opposition of the Clyde Trust, thus requiring constant dredging"; as a result, it was "accessible to larger steamers only at certain states of the tide". Other problems were "its distance from the town compared with the railway station, and the rivalry of the railway companies in providing steamers connecting at their terminal points" [remarks quoted from John Irving's "History of Dumbartonshire" (1924), a revision of his father Joseph Irving's work of the same name].
The pier, built from 1874-75, saw only occasional use, and, after sustaining severe damage during a storm in December 1900, it fell into disuse, and was eventually removed.
This park was formerly the site of
NS4075 : The steam engine from the PS Leven; see that item for more information. As noted there, the engine was later removed to Dumbarton's shopping centre (the forerunner of the present-day Artizan Centre), and finally to its present position outside
NS4075 : The Denny Tank Museum.