page_title: Lyle Hill
section_title: Lyle Road
hierarchical_section_title: Lyle Hill / History and name / Lyle Road
caption_attribution_description: English: Lyle Hill seen from near the foot of Lyle Road, looking across Newark Street to the railway bridge taking the Inverclyde Line west from Fort Matilda railway station to the Gourock terminus.
context_page_description: Lyle Hill at the West End of Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland, has scenic viewpoints accessible from Lyle Road which was constructed in 1879–1880 and named after Provost Abram Lyle, well known as a sugar refiner. The hill's highest point is Craigs Top at 426 feet above sea level, and before the road was constructed the hill was known as the Craigs, or as the Bingens.
  Adjacent to the highest point of the road, a scenic viewpoint looks out over Gourock and the Firth of Clyde to Cowal in the west, and north over the Fort Matilda area of Greenock to Argyll across the Clyde. There are benches, information points, and a beacon which is lit on significant occasions. Car parking spaces give views to the west, and a short distance further down the road the Free French Memorial is in the shape of the Cross of Lorraine combined with an anchor. Across the road, steps and a rough path lead up to a viewpoint at Craigs Top with views up the River Clyde as far as Glasgow.
context_section_description: Greenock expanded to the west on a grid plan. There was severe unemployment in the town during the Long Depression, and in late 1878 the Polce Board resolved to provide work by building a road or carriage drive to the Craigs or Bingens from the west end of Finnart Street, where it meets Madeira Street. The Streets Committee agreed in January 1879 to name it Lyle Road, after Abram Lyle who was then the town's Provost. He inherited a Greenock cooperage business, and in 1865 had co-founded a sugar refining partnership at the Glebe refinery (visible from the start of Lyle Road). The number of men and boys employed on the road construction varied from 250 to 400. The completed road extended westwards down to the Gourock toll at the junction of the high and low roads to Gourock, and was formally opened on 1 May 1880. 
  Lyell Road was built with a maximum gradient of 1 in 10 (10%) and the distance along it heading west from Madiera Street to the Gourock toll is 1.7 miles (2.7 km). Its high point at 392 feet (119 m) above sea level is near Craigs Top (426 feet (130 m)), which a Canadian wit proposed should be renamed "The Heights of Abram". The Lyle family sold its share in the Glebe refinery to other partners in 1880, and with the funds bought land at Plaistow near London to start the Abram Lyle & Sons refinery, not far from the Silvertown refinery of Henry Tate & Sons. In 1921 their successors merged to form Tate & Lyle.
  From 1863 onwards, the Caledonian Railway and the Greenock and Ayrshire Railway sought approval for rival schemes taking various routes for a connection to Gourock. In 1883 the House of Lords committee decided in favour of a Caledonian Railway scheme, and their railway opened in 1889. It runs in a bored tunnel directly under Newton Street, the next street to the south parallel with Finnart Street, diverging where Newton Street bends west into Lyle Road. Houses eventually developed along Newton Street a short distance past this bend: the length of Lyle Road from these houses to the junction with Eldon Street is approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km).  The railway tunnel ends in the Fort Matilda area, and a short distance to the west of Fort Matilda station an iron railway bridge takes the line over Lyle Road, on its way to Gourock station and pierhead.
caption: Railway bridge over Lyle Road.
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