The artist: I wanted to put in all the good scenery
In his 2010 book, A Life In Pictures, Alasdair Gray told how he slept in the bar while painting the work for then owner James Campbell in 1969 when it was known as the Tavern Kirkfieldbank.
He described how he had been inspired after seeing the full force of the falls pouring over Bonnington Linn and Cora Linn. “I had visited the Clyde Falls on one of the rare weekends when the dam serving Bonnington power station is raised. This lets the whole river plunge over Bonnington Linn and, after pouring for a mile along a deep gorge, plunge over Cora Linn. “Thus I had seen these as they had been when famous in history before the power station came in the 1920s. William Wallace had used the gorge as a hiding place after starting the war for Scottish independence. David Dale and Robert Owen, humane factory owner and the founder of Co-operative Socialism, had used the falls to drive the machines in their model industrial village of New Lanark. I had seen them as Coleridge, the Wordsworths, Turner and most Scottish landscape painters saw them. “I wanted to put all this good scenery into my mural.” Speaking to the BBC in 2009, Gray said: “This part of the river is fascinating for its geology, natural history and the social history of Scotland through its connection with William Wallace, the early industrial revolution, David Dale and the Scottish co-operative movement. “I have since enjoyed many walks with friends, especially at weekends when Bonnington power station is switched off and the Clyde Falls can be seen with the full force that astonished Wordsworth and Coleridge.”