Fisherman nets chart uncovering piece of the River Forth history

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Forth fisherman has uncovered a piece of Stirling history with the purchase of an old Admiralty chart of the river.Mick Symon, who was brought up in Raploch and now lives in Dunblane, paid £30 for the chart which was originally engraved in 1900 and updated in the 1960s.It shows a section of the Forth from the River Carron to Stirling.The crew of HMS Research, captained by William Usborne Moore, carried out the survey work for the map in 1898 to establish the depth of the river for navigation purposes.Mick, who has been an angler on the Forth and Allan for more than 50 years, said: “With the river playing such an important role in Stirling history, I’ve wanted an Admiralty chart which covers the river to Stirling for years, and now I finally have one.“As a boy my pals and I sometimes caught trout on the Forth, but more often than not eels and flounders.“But growing up on the banks of the Forth at Raploch it wasn’t just fishing that captured our imagination.“It was also the stories about Stirling trading with other parts of Europe like the Low Countries and as far as the Baltic in the 16th century.“Ships would have carried exports to these destinations from the banks of the Forth at Riverside.“The river had a role in trade for centuries - and paddle steamers also berthed at the docks in Riverside in the late 1800s and early 1900s.”However, these larger vessels would have needed high tides to reach Riverside with the Forth being tidal up to Kildean.Mick added: “The existence of the Admiralty map shows that the Forth was deemed important enough to commission the Royal Navy to survey the river right up to Stirling.“The river was used by commercial traffic up until the Second World War and barges also supplied the military