This is a place founded on being ‘on the outside’—sited just beyond the original city limits, the Gorbals built its formidable reputation on the ability to accommodate migrants from around the world, give them a start, and then watch them leave to make way for the next arrivals. A tight community that paradoxically eulogises […]

  Places have their own private and public life and can feel haunted in multiple ways: some because they’ve changed but remain familiar; others because they spark vivid personal memories difficult to express in words, embodying fragments of times past that we can’t – for better or for worse – return to.   They help […]

  With #LoveYourLibraries month drawing to a close, World Book Day fast approaching on 3rd March and Covid restrictions easing, there’s no better time to visit a local library and find a good book. The Southside of Glasgow boasts several historic libraries which have provided its communities with fiction, information and welcoming reading space down […]

  Early Life and Education   Hannah Frank (1908-2008) was an artist and sculptor based in the Southside. She was born in Glasgow and lived in the Gorbals in her formative years, first in Abbotsford Road and later in South Portland Street. She then moved further south, living at 72 Dixon Avenue, Crosshill, where she was […]

The children were hunting the ‘Gorbals Vampire’ – a seven-foot-tall monster with long metal fangs who had killed and eaten two local boys.

Queen’s Park and Langside synagogues form a fascinating part of South Glasgow’s heritage.

Sir Thomas Lipton
1848 – 1931
Gorbals
World Famous Tea Merchant, Grocer and Yachtsman

Closed 1958 Since its closure in 1958 and later liquidation in 1960 the Dixons Ironworks has been a strong part of the historic past of the Gorbals and those who are able to recall its physical dominance within the area have similar memories of this part of the environment that was known to “light up […]

Opened 1840 In 1839 a public meeting was held in the Gorbals Baronial Hall with the proposal that land should be bought for the provision of a much needed Southern Necropolis, resulting from the cholera outbreak of 1832. After further meetings a management committee was set up which included particularly noteworthy member, Colin Sharp McLaws, […]

Introduction The name “Gorbals” is known throughout the world. It is commonly and perhaps unfairly associated with all that was worst in housing conditions and mainly for that reason, the area was the first in Glasgow to experience wholesale redevelopment after World War II. Despite redevelopment, there still remain many reminders of the area’s past […]