A brief outline of Scotline’s company history from humble beginnings to the company we are today.
The company was formed in 1979 and carried its first cargo in the same year under the Scotline name, meaning we’ve been established over 40 years. The first shipment was logs between Inverness and Bremen in Germany which became a regular route, before moving the route to Inverness to Varberg.
In 1981 we chartered our first vessel and set up the Scotline liner service, transporting sawn timber from Varberg to Inverness. This liner service was agreed as a joint venture between Scotline and Scotlog Sales. Today the liner service has established trade routes between Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, the Baltic States and the UK.
The service was run using charter vessels until 1994 when Scotline Marine Holdings Ltd, a close business partner, purchased its first vessel, the Hohebank, which was time chartered by Scotline. Their fleet has since expanded to 8 modern box-hold vessels with further commercially run vessels on behalf of close friends.
Scotline’s original operation at Inverness was expanded to additional sites at Whitstable in Kent and Goole in Yorkshire, before moving to Gunness in Yorkshire and Rochester in 1994.
The site at Rochester, on the banks of the River Medway, is owned by Scotline Terminal (Medway) Ltd and was much larger than Whitstable at 11 acres. The site was developed to include office facilities, 2 large warehouses, secure storage for equipment and a base for an engineering team to look after the ships’ and terminal’s requirements. By 2010 this space had been completely exploited and more was required. This lead to a second terminal facility owned by Scotline Terminal (Transit) Ltd in January 2011, which added a further 14 acres to storage space in Rochester available to Scotline.
The company’s head office was originally based in Holborn in London, before moving to Romford in Greater London where it is still found today, with further offices on each of the terminals and a separate base at Rochester for the chartering and technical teams used by Scotline.
