Glasgow And Ships Of The Clyde

Union Castle Line return an oil painting from their liner STIRLING CASTLE

   The Town Clerk of Stirling, a city in Central Scotland, was astonished to receive a letter from the Union Castle Line in London advising him that their passenger liner STIRLING CASTLE was being broken up in Mihara in Hiroshima Prefecture of Japan.

   The letter told that the Town Council of Stirling had presented an oil painting to the ship, to be displayed on board, on the occasion of her maiden voyage to South Africa in 1936.

   Union Castle Line had removed the painting from the vessel before she went to the shipbreakers and were arranging for the painting to be returned to Stirling.

   STIRLING CASTLE, 725 feet long (225m) and of 25,550 gross tons, was built by Harland & Wolff at Belfast for Union Castle’s mail and passenger service from Southampton to South Africa, calling at Las Palmas, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban.

   In August 1936 she set a new record for the passage from Southampton to Table Bay, reaching South Africa in 13 days and 9 hours, beating the previous record of 14 days 18 hours 57 minutes which had stood since 1893.

   During World War 11 she was used as a troopship and carried 128,000 personnel over 505,000 miles and was unscathed during the conflict.

   STIRLING CASTLE returned to the South Africa passenger route in 1947, until November 1965 when she was withdrawn from service and sold to Nichimen Shipbreaking Company in Japan, arriving there on 3^rd March 1966.