Rhu (pronounced roo) is a village and historic parish on the east shore of the Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The traditional spelling of its name was Row, but it was changed in the 1920s so that outsiders would pronounce it correctly. The name derives from the Scots Gaelic rudha meaning 'point'. It lies north-west of the town of Helensburgh on the Firth of Clyde, in the historic county of Dunbartonshire. Like many settlements in the area, it became fashionable in the nineteenth century as a residence for wealthy Glasgow shipowners and merchants. Rhu and Shandon Parish Church dates from 1851 and stands on the site of an eighteenth century predecessor. Amongst those buried in the kirkyard is Henry Bell, whose Comet was the world's first commercially successful steamship. In 1851 the marine engineer Robert Napier built the statue which today marks Bell's grave. Rhu is a base for yachting. It includes a point, just opposite another point near Rosneath, which forms what is known as either the "Rhu Narrows" or the "Rosneath Narrows" at the mouth of the Gare Loch. Locals call it the "spit" (they say that before dredging it was possible to do this across the water). The loch would have been cut off and a lagoon formed if the "longshore drift" was allowed to occur naturally. Groynes prevent this from happening.