THE giant cooling tower of Pinkston Power Station - for a while the largest in Europe - was a landmark on the Glasgow skyline from the 1950s to the 1980s.

The station, built in 1900 at Port Dundas, generated the electricity which powered the city's tram network. Glasgow Corporation had decided to electrify the network by 1901 for the opening of the International Exhibition at Kelvingrove Park.

One of the strange side effects of the power station was that the cooling system returned hot water to the Forth and Clyde Canal, which is why you can see steam coming off the water in this picture.

With much of the old basin now converted into Scotland's first paddlesports centre, we expect today's canoeists would be glad of warmer waters.