Let Glasgow flourish, but do not let her forget the example of the curlers to whom she owes so much of her success, and who owed so much of their success to the curling by which they lightened the burdens of civic and commercial care. [1.]

The remaining pond

I was taking a walk through the woods on the south side of the White Cart in Pollok Park. I’d just got hold of a new camera and wanted an explore. Crossing over the Pollok Toon (aka Pollok Toun and Pooktoun) Bridge, I took the path up towards the golf course, and then jumping over a stile on the left, crossed a field down to the woods by the river.

Through the woods, there was some pretty treacherous and swampy undergrowth with a fair number of cowpats. In the distance, there was an obviously man-made area that was about the size of a bowling green. The sunlight was hitting the tall grass and with the water flooding the site, the scene looked quite strange, obviously man-made and yet almost ethereal as the sun lit up the wet grasses amidst the gloom of the surrounding trees.

The site itself was bordered by another set of smaller dark brown, gangly beech trees across three of the sides of the square. They looked tortured as they reached out towards the light. With closer inspection you could see that their equal spacing and linear planting was once a formal hedge row.

Turning back towards the base of the hills and trees, there was a concrete base from a square building. Covered with undergrowth, slate tiles were also scattered around the site. Under the canopy, there was another feature – a deep circular stone structure, filled with rubble, that was about 2 meters in diameter.

All this mystery was the site of a curling pond belonging to Pollok Curling Club, with its accompanying clubhouse. From an earlier age, an icehouse was built nearby to serve the 18C grand building of Pollok House.

This article explores the reasons for building a curling pond in such a hidden area, the way curling grew across the south of Glasgow, and the tensions just playing as simple a game as curling might have caused.

Before the Pollok Curling Club [2.]

The History of Curling [3.] has been written up before. In the often-meandering style of history books written in the Victorian era, Curling historians recorded that Pollokshaws Curling Club was one of the first clubs in what they termed the modern era of Curling, although the suggested date of their formation varies between 1801 and 1808 [4.].

Before any man-made pond came into existence, curling would take place on frozen ponds and rivers, and the White Cart was one such place. In front of what was then the newly built Pollok House are two weirs built in 1757, the largest was built to power the sawmill before being used to generate electricity for Pollok House.

The weir downstream, just beside what’s now the car park, artificially raised the level of the river in front of the House, adding to an improved and fashionable rural landscape from Pollok House for the 3rd Baronet. Whether by accident or by design, when the conditions were cold enough to freeze, the raised watercourse would allow level playing on the river.

The Royal Caledonian Curling Club Annual for 1898-99 recalled that in 1836 such a match took place on the river between players from Govan and Eastwood Parishes. [5.]

By 1844, the club was playing in what would become the Cowglen Curling Pond. It had an accompanying clubhouse and was located close to what is now the 1st hole of Cowglen Golf Course. The present course itself was not built until 1906.

Two years later in 1850 The Glasgow Gazette confirmed that the Pollokshaws Curling Club may well have existed for quite some time and had developed a well-earned reputation:

The club would play at other locations where the ice was playable, in 1865 they played against a team from North Woodside at the Flag Quarry Loch or Hart’s Muir or Moor in Giffnock [6.]. Hart’s Muir wasn’t an actual place, but maps and the Scotland Places website show that Wellwalls, a farm in Giffnock, was occupied by James Hart at the time.

By 1869, Eastwood Pond formally opened in January, it was just 5 minutes from Giffnock Station with hourly buses from Pollokshaws.

The split

By 1879 an acrimonious disagreement took place between two teams of the Pollokshaws Club at a match played at the Giffnock Curling Pond. The dispute arose over which team would order and pay for a meal for the poor of Pollokshaws burgh. [8.] [9.]

The case ended up in Paisley Court with the judge ruling in favour of the match winners who were instructed to pay for the costs of the meal. The subsequent court expenses cost more than the meal.

The two teams fell out and eventually, two separate clubs were formed. Confusingly, the winners carried on as Pollokshaws and played their games at Giffnock and the losers, who were officially formed as Eastwood on November 25, 1879, carried on playing at Cowglen [10.]. This was the club that would eventually become Pollok Curling Club.

The new Eastwood club was keen to keep in with the Stirling-Maxwell family. After the death of Sir William Stirling-Maxwell in 1878, the young John Stirling-Maxwell, who had just finished his schooling at Eton, was invited to be the Pollok Club’s patron in 1883, unfortunately, he didn’t reply. Four years later, the committee repeated the invitation and this time he accepted. He served as President and Patron from 1896 to 1899.

The two clubs, Eastwood and Pollokshaws improved their relations and would often play across the same parish. In an attempt at unity, the Eastwood Club made an approach in December 1889 for members of the Pollokshaws Club to join as ordinary members and to curl on the Cowglen Pond, however despite this ‘very neighbourly action’, there was no reply.

By 1895, the club finally changed its name from Eastwood to Pollok Curling Club. The name change had a dual purpose: firstly, to reflect where most of their activities were taking place, and secondly, to make a new start from the ill-feeling still being felt from the split a generation before.

So Pollokshaws played in Giffnock and Eastwood played in Pollokshaws?

Amongst all the factories of Pollokshaws, another privately owned skating pond was constructed on Cogan Street and was available for matches as early as 1879 [11.]. The Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette in 1886 reported a match on the new curling rink and the next week another game took place despite severe snowstorms.

“An enthusiastic game was played on Thursday on the Cogan Street Skating Pond between several of the members of the Pollokshaws Curling Club. There was one rink, four men a-side, and notwithstanding the severe snowstorms the ice was in a fair condition.” [12.]

Curling was growing fast in the late 19C. newspapers such as the Glasgow Evening Post [13.] would carry regular condition reports for all the curling and skating ponds across Glasgow on their front page.

Despite the attentions of non-players taking advantage of the ice, curling was said to be open to all. Landowners were playing alongside the labourers who prepared the ice. The Herald in 1844 described ‘a republican simplicity’ where ‘the only distinction recognised is that of skill and ability’.

By 1867, The Glasgow Herald [14.] reported that curling had reached the workers of Pollokshaws where a match took place on the private Pollokshaws Curling Pond between teams from the Auldfield and Auldhouse textile and dye factories.

An advert in the Evening Citizen for the Giffnock Pond’s opening came in 1869 with a warning: ‘all persons found sliding upon the ice or trespassing the fields adjoining will be prosecuted‘. [15.]

Cowglen also had an issue with the pond sluice gates being tampered with by persons unknown. It caused the club so much concern that 2 guineas were offered in 1887 in reward for evidence leading to the conviction of the guilty parties.

Another problem the club faced was the presence of the locals taking advantage of the ice before the members could play their matches. This was so much of a problem that by 1896 the Pond Committee were: “authorised to take whatever steps they thought necessary to protect the ice from Skaters, Sliders, etc…”

The Pollok Club’s hunt for a new pond

Cowglen also had its own practical problems, it required manpower to create the ice, so whenever there was the prospect of ice, a team from the club would be delegated to dam up the site to create a suitable playing surface.

Whatever their final reasons, the membership felt that Cowglen wasn’t felt to be the ideal location for the club’s curling, and by 1901 the Pond Committee was tasked to find a new home.

The first choice was towards the far west of the estate at Hippingstone. While the site was located on a flat plain and the site was regularly flooded so it had the potential for a level site with plentiful water, it proved to be unsuitable due to subsidence in the area.

After more investigation, the woods on the south banks of the river on the western boundary of the Sheep Park [16.] were identified. The chosen area beside some old north-facing woods and the existing 18C icehouse would have already been known to be a cold place in winter.

The Stirling-Maxwells agreed, and estate labourers started building in October 1906. The rink – the same one I stumbled on the remnants of last year – with accompanying paths and bordering hedges was completed in less than three months.

The early years

Membership of the Pollok Club had grown by 1904 with 54 playing members. The club was tied closely with local freemasons, local politicians and the Church of Scotland and they displayed the utmost of early 20c respectability and hospitality, they liked the big occasion and played a full part in the Royal Caledonian Curling Club.

They would attend bonspiels and host grand dinners toasting the great and the good from Royalty downwards; they also kept to ancient curling tradition by holding what were called Courts where they would welcome new members and invited local chaplains to be honorary post holders.

The connection between the House and the players local connections with politicians and society is hard to ignore. In 1907 a local newspaper marked the occasion:

“The new pond of the Pollok Curling Club was formally opened yesterday. It is conveniently situated within the policies [17.] of Pollok, a short distance from Pollok House. The first two stones were thrown by Lady Stirling Maxwell for whom Sir John Stirling-Maxwell acted as skip. Cake and wine having been served, Provost Macdougall proposed the health of Lady Stirling Maxwell, and this was heartily pledged.

Thereafter Mr J Campbell Murray, Haggs Castle, President, in the name of the Club, presented Lady Stirling Maxwell with a beautiful silver inkstand as a memento of the occasion. Play was then begun, a match taking place between sides representing Sir John and Mr Murray. Sir John won by a majority of 41 to 25.” [18.]

Playing both ends

Unfortunately, the pond wasn’t as playable as the club might have hoped. Mild winters meant playing was unpredictable and limited with dark nights, fog, thin or rough ice. Even on good days and with good ice, play would have only been playable during the short winter daylight or with lamps in the evening.

Not that far away more impressive rink started construction. Crossmyloof already had an open-air curling pond played by the Glasgow Lilybank Club [19.], but then in 1907 the indoor ice rink at Crossmyloof opened.

With two indoor curling rinks, as well as ice-skating and ice-hockey areas, it was described as pristine. What they also had was year-long, with all-day opening and lighting to allow play from morning until the evening. The club Pollok Curling Club took advantage of the new facilities as soon as 1908 and would play regular matches and tournaments in the new venue.

Even so, play would continue in the estate when the ice permitted. In 1911, a small clubhouse was donated by the Stirling-Maxwells and erected between the pond and the icehouse. As well as shelter, it provided a practical location to store stones and brooms as well as allowing players to change or clean muddy boots to play on the ice.

The clubhouse opening ceremony was worthy enough to invite reporters and the occasion was marked in The Scotsman and Barrhead News, who reported the Provost giving Miss Anne Stirling-Maxwell, the daughter of Sir Stirling-Maxwell, a gold key to commemorate the occasion [20.]. Again, it was a highly respectable occasion, with Ladies and Gentlemen present.

In the 1920s permanent lamps were installed to allow evening play, something ponds in more urban locations already had through gas lights. Even so, the path back to Pollok House along the riverbank would still need portable lamps so players could make their way back safely in the dark.

Further tournaments took place in 1933, and in 1935 two hours play was achieved on smooth ice before the surface started to melt. Further tournaments were held in 1941 and 1951.

Despite numerous attempts to deal with weeds who loved the moist conditions and open light in the summer, the playing surface became more difficult, and together with recurring drainage problems the pond became unplayable.

Attempts at revival

As the years passed, club members kept dear memories of the rink. In 1982 the committee was tasked with creating a fundraising plan and costed plans were created to revive the pond. To make the scheme more viable membership would be available beyond the Pollok Club to the wider Glasgow curling membership.

Over £18,000 was raised through grants and personal donations, however just before work commenced the contractor went into liquidation and no new contractor could be found to undertake the work.

The club continued to play at Crossmyloof despite frequent disputes with the owners over the playing conditions. In 1986 Crossmyloof became unplayable with a dangerous roof and the loss of seven playing sheets. Play then transferred to a new rink at Finnieston.

The club continues and has meetings within the Pollok Golf Club’s clubhouse with the Pollok Curling Cup on display in the clubhouse’s trophy cabinet.

Revisiting the site

I returned to the site in mid-October, the mid-morning sun was barely coming over the hill of Pollok Golf Course just to the south.

The water from a spring in the hillside was still filling the pond, while a drain to channel excess water into the White Cart was either damaged or not working effectively. The drains are still present and can be seen at various points emptying from the banks of the river into the Cart.

With a hill just to the south, it was clear that the site would certainly be cold in winter, and any ice, snow, or frost would be the last to thaw under any apricity or the warmth of the winter sun.

Looking around the site, I tried to imagine what it must have been like at the start of the Pond’s life. The location is quite private, there would have been little room for spectators watching from the paths at the side.

While other side of the river was still private land and on the edge of Pollok House’s private grounds – which had been opened up to public access in 1911 by Sir John Stirling-Maxwell – any passers-by on the footpath on the other side of the river would only have been able hear the roar of the stones on the ice and chatter amongst the players from some distance through what was then a young tree plantation.

Getting nearby to the pond for a closer look would have been quite impractical. It certainly wouldn’t have been as much in view or publicly accessible as the old site at Cowglen, the skating pond amongst the factories in Colgan Street, or the new ice rink at Crossmyloof.

At home and using the Google Maps measuring tool, the pond was 47m (150ft) by 43m (140ft) with the total area including paths and bushes measuring 49m (160ft) by 53m (175 ft) and so just slightly shorter than the length of a modern curling rink. To help you visualise, it’s almost identical to Springhill Gardens in Shawlands, which has also been identified as the former site of another curling rink.

Visiting the site

Pollok House occasionally hosts an interesting and very knowledgeable guided tour called ‘A Story of Water and Ice’ which includes the rink as well as some other hidden histories of the park including the lost village of Pollok Toon. If they continue after Glasgow Life takes over the management after the lease to the National Trust for Scotland ends and as Pollok House undergoes its refurbishment programme in 2024-2027, the tour is highly recommended.

As a side note, the site while falling into neglect, still attracts interest from specialists looking at the biodiversity in the park. In 2016 the Glasgow Local Biodiversity Action Plan designated the pond as a swamp. [21.]

For those who prefer exploring on their own or as a group, accessing the site can be quite challenging and may involve climbing over fences or navigating old stiles and gates, as well as tackling very uneven and muddy ground on the approach. There are slopes, trees with low-hanging branches, and fallen tree trunks everywhere. Even in the middle of a dry spell, most of the site is difficult. If you are walking your dog, you would really need to keep them on a leash. The local highland cattle may also take an interest in you.

by Stephen Fyfe

Published 13th March 2024

—

References

1. The History of Curling, John Kerr, 1890, Glasgow, p183

2. Three particular websites have been invaluable in researching this article. Pollok Curling Club (https://pollokcc.weebly.com/) includes a treasure trove of timelines as well as some historical accounts of the club in their online archives. Alongside newspaper archives, the second is the website Historical Curling Places (https://sites.google.com/view/historicalcurlingplaces/home?authuser=0) which has plotted the location together with contemporary evidence of the locations of thousands of curling ponds across the UK.

3. The third is History of Curling: Scotland’s Ain Game and Fifty Years of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, John Kerr, 1890, p174 (Internet Archive) https://archive.org/details/historyofcurling00kerruoft/mode/2up

4. Pollokshaws Curlers Society formed in 1808 and were said to play on a site in Afton Terrace (Pollokshaws Road) Pollokshaws A brief history. Jack Gibson, 1980; Essay on Curling, and Artificial Pond Making By J. Cairnie, 1883, p141; Fowler’s Commercial Directory Of The Principal Towns And Villages In The Upper Ward For Renfrewshire, 1836, p233)

5. Royal Caledonian Curling Club Annual for 1898-99 (Google Docs link) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1omB9kBYPrqUZtE4uB5KbzExIczhEJcOPEerB4HQWar0/edit?usp=sharing

6. Hart’s Muir would become the first location of Eastwood Golf Course, a 9-hole then 18-hole course located to the west of Fenwick Road between Orchard Park Drive and Burnfield Road which opened in 1891 (Evening Times 28 September 1891)

7. The owner James McHaffie had farm steadings across the area including Robslee, Giffnock, and Orchard as well as one of the Giffnock quarries. Renfrewshire OS Name Books, 1856-1857, OS1/26/5/53

8. Pollokshaws was a Burgh of Renfrewshire, with its own councillors, Provost and their own Pollokshaws Fair holidays which included horse racing on the site of Cowglen Golf Course where one of the holes is known as the Race Course Hole.

9. Pollokshaws Burgh was incorporated into Glasgow in 1912 although they did resist suggesting that the burgh would be in a better position to take over the running of the city.

10. The Eastwood club was also reported as hosting a match against Cathcart in 1881 on one of the two ponds within the grounds of the Broom Mansion (now occupied by the Belmont School).

11. Glasgow Herald, 4 December 1879, p1

12. Paisley and Renfrewshire Gazette, 6 February 1886

13. Glasgow Evening Post, 12 February 1889 and 6 January 1891

14. January 21, 1867

15. Glasgow Herald, 24 February 1865; Evening Citizen, 23 December 1869

16. Also known as Sheep-pecks or Shapaks on some old maps, the Sheep park extended from behind the current Pollokshaws Railway Station up to the woods almost in the centre of the estate, the current woods nearer the station were still to be planted. The cottages beside the bowling club are still known as the Sheep Farm.

17. Estate boundaries. The Pollok estate was private. Walls, fences and gates are still present alongside the river pathway.

18. Unknown publication, 29 December 1906

19. Before Crossmyloof, Lilybank Curling Club played at Mr Murphy’s Field on Pollokshaws Road (Glasgow Herald, 14 November 1870); the Historical Curling Places website suggests that the field is now known better as Springhill Gardens opposite Queen’s Park between Strathbungo and Crossmyloof.

20. After Sir John’s death, Anne donated Pollok House along with its art collections, gardens, and the estate to the City of Glasgow in 1966.

21. ‘Glasgow Local Biodiversity Action Plan, Pollok Country Park Management Plan 2016 – 2019’, p31 (Glasgow City Council, PDF document) https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=31514&p=0

All contemporary photographs of the site © Stephen Fyfe, 2023

The post Curling on the Pollok Estate appeared first on SGHET.

The St. Andrew’s Quoiting Club on Butterbiggins Road

From the late 1890s until about 1928, a small patch of ground just off Butterbiggins Road, near what we now call Eglinton Toll, was used to play one of the oldest games in the world – quoits – and was home to one of Glasgow’s most successful teams at the time, the St. Andrew’s Quoiting Club.

Quoits, pronounced ‘kites’ in many parts of Scotland, was a hugely popular game at this time, not just in Glasgow but across the country. There were around 40 clubs in Glasgow and about 200 clubs in Scotland affiliated to the Scottish Quoiting Association, with an average of 80 members each.

In those days, when heavy industry was prevalent in Glasgow, the game was very popular with working-class men, many of whom had moved to Glasgow from small towns and rural areas and had brought their enthusiasm for the game with them.

It was inexpensive to participate, could be played almost anywhere, and there was often a chance to win money. For instance, the winner of the 1913 Scottish Championship took home £100, a prize worth several thousand pounds now.

Games drew large crowds, eager to see their favourite player succeed, and to socialise, drink and gamble on the result. Due to its popularity, quoiting also attracted considerable press attention, often as much, if not more than other sports.

Away from the spotlight at the very top of the game, the sport was enjoyed by thousands of ordinary players. In 1901, the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News reported that – “Possibly the game may lead occasionally to the consumption of a great deal of beer, but he who is an enthusiast at quoits must surely be moderate if he is to play his best game.”

The St. Andrew’s Club took their name from an earlier name for Eglinton Toll, St Andrew’s Cross, so-called because of the saltire shaped intersection which was created there when Victoria Road was constructed in 1862 to connect Queen’s Park with Eglinton Street and the city.

The name Eglinton Toll was also in use in this period, possibly to distinguish other buildings from the triangular shaped gushet-building that stands between Eglinton Street and Pollokshaws Road, which to this day still has the name St. Andrew’s Cross engraved prominently on the outside wall.

In 1946 a barrier was erected between Pollokshaws Road and Victoria Road to ease the flow of traffic and the possibility of being able to travel in multiple directions was lost. The name St. Andrew’s Cross persisted for a few years and was still used on maps in the 1950s. Gradually however, the alternative name Eglinton Toll became more prominent and more commonly used.

One school of thought suggests that quoits originated in ancient Greece and was closely related to discus throwing. Arguably, a version of the sport that became known as quoits could have been played at the first Olympic Games, around 1453 BC, when the athlete who threw the disc or ring furthest was declared champion. Another theory is that the quoits developed from the game of horseshoe throwing, where the object was to pitch a horseshoe around a ring.

Henry V of England was known to have disliked quoits, probably because it distracted men from the business of sword fighting or archery. It was said ‘he as cordially hated the game as the devil did holy water’.

Mary I of England, Mary Tudor, was known to be a keen quoiter but her tutor Roger Ascham, author of ‘Toxophilus: The Art of Archery’ discouraged her, believing the sport to be ‘too vulgar for scholars’.

By the mid-nineteenth century the game had evolved into throwing the quoit – a heavy steel ring weighing at least 11 pounds, often much more – at a pin, often called a ‘hob’ or a ‘mott’ which was is in the middle of a clay or sand pit 18 yards away, sometimes 21 yards away.

According to J. M Walker, in ‘Rounders, Quoits, Bowls, Skittles and Curling’ (1892), there was considerable strength and skill involved in throwing a quoit – ‘In pitching it, the player should endeavour to put on a slight spin with his wrist, so that the missile may pass smoothly and at an angle of about 30 degrees horizontally through the air, the great aim being to make the quoit pitch, so as to ring or encircle the hob pin, or failing that to get as near as possible. Strength in the arms and shoulders, and quickness of sight, with a capacity for measuring distance, and dexterity of wrist are indispensable requisites for this game.’

While it is impossible to say exactly where or when people started to play quoits in Glasgow, there is evidence that it was already a popular and well-established sport in some quarters of the city, as far back as the 1840s. It was almost certainly a popular sport in small towns and rural areas for many decades prior to this time. No doubt the advent of the railways in the 1840s enabled players from far flung places like Paisley and Ayrshire to travel more easily to Glasgow and for Glaswegian players to compete outside the city.

There are newspaper reports in the Glasgow Herald and other newspapers in 1844 of a match played at Weir’s Curling and Quoiting Green in Tradeston near present-day Kinning Street for the princely sum of 100 sovereigns, more than £10,000 in today’s money, between David Weir of Glasgow and a Mr Smith from Mauchine in Ayrshire. David Weir, the proprietor of the Green, was a farmer from Mauchline originally, but his talent for quoits earned him a quoiting green in Glasgow and some degree of fame.

The game took place over five days in the middle of winter and attracted national attention. Eddowes’s Shrewsbury Journal reported that –

‘On no match at quoits ever played in Glasgow was there so much betting, or half the amount of excitement as to the result. In Liverpool, where heavy bets were pending, the result was anxiously looked for’.

‘This game, in the month of December – usually devoted to the sport of curling – was somewhat out of season; but the weather was highly favourable, and the spectators were numerous. The betting at first was even, but after the first day’s play Smith was the favourite, and slight odds were offered and freely taken. Latterly however, three to one was offered on Smith with no takes. The games were frequently so prolonged that, although the players commended each day at eleven o’clock, it was quite dark before they finished, and an artificial light was not allowed. In the dark, Smith, although alleged by his supporters to be short-sighted, had always the best of the play; and on Wednesday night displayed more skill, and played far more successfully, than he had done during the day.’

Weir’s Green also played host to a benefit match later that year, featuring ‘the most celebrated players from around Scotland’ to raise funds for the widow of a player killed by a quoit in Port Dundas, so it is reasonable to assume there was also a quoiting ground located there.

That same year, elsewhere in Tradeston, on Centre Street, a Mr John Norris became proprietor of Tradeston New Washing Green and Quoit Ground. Watchmen patrolled the ground day and night, to protect property left by clients and quoit playing was permitted within the grounds at ‘a very low charge’. The price for season tickets was described as ‘moderate’.

There was a ground in Shettleston belonging to Mr Paton, another on Garscube Road, sometimes referred to as the Springfield Grounds, belonging to a Mr Melaugh and other clubs in Pollokshields and Pollokshaws.

Pub landlords were often more than happy to allow the game to be played on vacant ground outside their premises. There was known to be a quoiting ground outside the Black Bull Inn on Argyle Street.

One particular quoiting ground came to prominence in the 1860s, on Greendyke Street next to Glasgow Green, which was already the focus of most sporting activity within the city. Open, public space within the city boundaries was limited and increasingly difficult to find, so the Green attracted players from many different sports, many would-be sportsmen, and occasionally women, eager to test themselves and try something new…

James Banks McNeil, a boatbuilder, swimming instructor and one of the proprietors of the St Andrew’s Baths on Greendyke Street, saw an opportunity and provided space for a dedicated quoiting ground outside the baths, which became known as the St Andrew’s Baths Quoiting Ground.

In June of 1865, the inaugural competition at the new ground attracted Robert Walkinshaw, from Carlops in the Borders, who was then British Champion. He defeated all the best players from Glasgow and then afterwards graciously declared that the new ground ‘…is not surpassed by any other in Scotland, either for practice or match playing’.

The St. Andrew’s Baths closed in the early 1870s and was converted to a clothing warehouse. The closure likely came about because more and more people were moving westwards, and southwards, out of the city, to escape overcrowding and pollution and newer, more modern bathing facilities were being built or would soon be built. Byelaws and regulations also began to restrict what was able to happen on or near the Green, so the quoiters on Greendyke Street would have had to find another place to play.

A connection between those players and the club that would later emerge in Govanhill, called St Andrew’s, is tempting to imagine but unlikely; the shared name is probably just coincidence. Many clubs and organisations were keen to use the name St. Andrew’s to reinforce their Scottish credentials.

The opening of Queen’s Park Recreation Grounds in 1862 began to ease the pressure on Glasgow Green. This new public park would provide the opportunity for popular and emerging sports to be played and enjoyed. One of the earliest known organised events on the grounds was a pony race in 1864. By the end of the decade, many other sports including golf, cricket, bowling, rounders and of course football would gravitate towards this new space which was at the time outside the city boundaries, almost in the country.

Modern association football was in its infancy and Queen’s Park, the oldest football club in Scotland, played all their early matches on the Recreation Grounds before sectioning off part of the estate and building their own stadium, the first Hampden Park.

It soon became impossible to accommodate every fledgling sports club, would-be-athlete, or group of lads just looking for a kick-about on the new Recreation Grounds. Many vacant patches of ground in the rapidly developing southside were transformed into places to play, some temporarily, just for a few hours on a particular day, some permanently, for several years, into proper sports fields.

Prior to building the first Cathkin Park, Queen’s Park’s great rivals, the Third Lanark Rifle Volunteers, played on Victoria Park, on Victoria Road, located somewhere between Calder Street and Allison Street. A long-forgotten team called Crosshill Athletic played their matches on Coplawhill Park, just north of Calder Street. Another team called Glasgow Wanderers played on Eglinton Park, where Inglefield Street and Govanhill Park is today.

Whether quoiters found space in or near Queen’s Park Recreation Grounds at this time is unknown. The area on the north side of Butterbiggins Road was still private land but given the popularity of quoits at the time, especially amongst working men, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that it was being played in the area slightly to the north and east of the park known as Fireworks Village in the Lands of Govanhill, which lay outside the municipality of Glasgow and was home to a significant population of mineworkers, ironworkers and agricultural workers.

Those workers were known to have enjoyed their recreation. There was a reservoir at the junction of Cathcart Road and Aikenhead Road which was designed to provide water to Govan Iron Works, better known as Dixon’s Blazes, just to the north. That reservoir or Dixon’s Pond as it became known, was a favourite swimming, fishing and skating spot for the denizens of Fireworks Village. If they were enjoying those loosely organised pastimes, they were no doubt playing other unregulated games as well.

In 1877, the population of Fireworks Village and the surrounding area had increased sufficiently, earning the district the status of a ‘populous place’, which allowed the Burgh of Govanhill to be formed. Around the same time, the western portion of the Larkfield estate on the north side of Butterbiggins Road was sold. The area was not instantly transformed but a new railway junction was constructed that year, linking the Glasgow, Barrhead and Neilson line, with the Polloc and Govan Railway line, which became known as the Larkfield Junction.

The Scottish Quoiting Association was formed in 1880, with over 60 member clubs from across the country, including 10 clubs from in and around Glasgow, the Gardner Street Club, the Camlachie Club, the Clydesdale Club, based in Kinning Park. Two clubs from Barrhead, the Caledonian Club, the Arthurlie Club and other clubs from Whiteinch, Pollokshields, Pollokshaws and the Govan Manse Club.

There was not yet a registered club near St. Andrew’s Cross but the Larkfield Junction was greatly expanded in the late 1890s, and other manufacturing businesses had set up in the area, including a ropeworks, a cooperage and even an organ builder, so the number of working men in the vicinity of Butterbiggins Road would have increased and inevitably they would look to play sports in their free time, including quoits.

The St. Andrew’s Quoiting Club and the ground on Butterbiggins Road, is first mentioned in the press in 1898, in a match against Springside Kilmarnock. The Kilmarnock Club won convincingly on that occasion by 100 shots to 44.

Despite that early defeat, the St. Andrew’s Club would go on to become one of the most successful clubs in Scotland in the early twentieth century, regularly competing in the Glasgow League and regional and national competitions, and notably in the most prestigious individual tournament open to Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Dunbartonshire players, the Wylie Cup, dubbed ‘Glasgow’s Premier Competition’ and the winner was considered the Champion of Glasgow.

The Wylie Cup competition was organised and hosted by Stanley Club, based on Scotland Street in Kinning Park, from 1901. This prestigious trophy was the gift of Baillie Wylie, an enthusiastic player, who donated this valuable prize in order to promote has favourite sport.

Unfortunately, the Stanley Club disbanded in 1909 and so care of the trophy and the honour of hosting the competition transferred to the St Andrew’s Club at Butterbiggins Road. One of the members of St Andrew’s, whose name only appears in results as J. Dalrymple, won the Wylie Cup at least 5 times between 1903 and 1914.

Many of the members of St. Andrew’s could have been iron workers employed at the nearby Dixon’s Blazes or locomotive builders, working for the North British Railway Company at the Queen’s Park Yard, tram workers employed at the recently opened Coplawhill depot, workers from the nearby St Andrew’s Cross Electricity Station or even miners working in one of several local collieries.

Quoits were available commercially but amongst the ranks of enthusiastic players, there would have been skilled metal workers, capable of crafting a metal ring, suitable for playing quoits and well-matched to the hand of the individual. Also, many former footballers, keen to continue competing, and to supplement their wages, took up quoits after retiring from football.

In 1912, the Scottish Referee reported that:

‘…the game is the oldest of our sports and has undoubtedly the most skilful. Not only that, but it requires stamina to last a match playing sometimes for six hours at a stretch with quoits weighing anything up to twenty-four pounds. This is perhaps the reason why some of our well-known professional footballers have taken so well to the game.

Many of them play regularly, one notable personality being A. Brown, late of Tottenham Hotspur and Middlesbrough, who, while playing football, was capped for Scotland against England in seasons 1902 and 1904. He plays second to Matthew Park in the Glenbuck Club and had much to do with the defeat of East Calder in the Scottish Cup a week ago. The Glenbuck team also includes Tom Bone, the champion of Britain, and pitching enthusiasts have a treat in store list have a treat in store when Glenbuck visit Glasgow on 6 July to oppose St Andrew’s in the semi-final round of the Scottish Association Cup.’

The St. Andrew’s Quoiting Club was known to still be active in 1927, but within a year the club would probably have had to disband or relocate when the Larkfield estate was taken over by Glasgow Corporation, the chosen site for a new bus depot which was, when it opened two years later, the largest of its type in Glasgow.

What became of the club after this time is unclear; the exploits of other clubs continued to be reported on in the press throughout the 1930s but no reliable reports or even results for the St Andrew’s Club have yet been discovered.

There was, unexpectedly, a brief mention of a club called St. Andrew’s in the press in 1937 playing a match against the Parkhead Forge team but whether this club had any connection to the one based in Govanhill is impossible to know for certain.

Traditional quoiting is very much a minority sport now, but there are accessible, safer variations of the game still played around the country and abroad. The old game, sometimes called the long game, enjoyed its greatest moments in the industrial era, in the days of large workforces, when many men were engaged together in manual labour, and strength and skills like dexterity, and hand-eye coordination, were highly valued.

Social and cultural changes since those days have seen the sport suffer a near-terminal decline. The Scottish Quoiting Association has been disbanded for many years, but a handful of clubs survived until the 1990s, including the Tarbothie Club from Shotts, near Glasgow.

Now there is just one solitary club left in Scotland, the Dunnotar Quoiting Club from Stonehaven in the northeast of the country, still competing with clubs from England and Wales, and who are valiantly striving to keep the old game alive.

Published: 7th February 2023

About the author: Bruce Downie
Bruce has been a board member of South Glasgow Heritage and Environment Trust since 2019, and chair since 2021. He is the author of ‘Loved and Lost: Govanhill’s Built Heritage’ first published by Govanhill Baths in 2019. Then in 2021, he wrote ‘99 Calder Street: A History of Govanhill Baths and Washhouse‘. A second, revised and expanded edition of ‘Loved and Lost: Govanhill’s Built Heritage’ was published in 2022. Bruce also runs a walking tour company called Historic Walking Tours of Glasgow.

Setptember 2023 update: you can now listen to an audio version of the blog read by Bruce Downie here on our new podcast show Southside Chronicles on Glad Radio!

Sources:

British Newspaper Archive
National Library of Scotland, Maps
‘Rounders, Quoits, Bowls, Skittles and Curling’ by J. M. Walker (G. Bell, 1892)

The post Quoiting in Govanhill appeared first on SGHET.

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 define us – where we were then or are now, sometimes both – and convey how our predecessors lived. In our own lifetimes huge changes happen, but what often strikes us most is that jolt that comes when faced with sudden, drastic change in what we’ve only recently left behind us or have a meaningful connection to.

This could soon be the case with the (temporarily closed since 2020) Shawfield Stadium, which sits north east of Polmadie near the banks of the Clyde, as a planning application to demolish it and redevelop the site for residential and other uses has been lodged with South Lanarkshire Council by its owners.

Although just outside Glasgow’s present day borders, its history is entwined with that of the city. For a brief period from 1975-1996 it was even incorporated into Glasgow’s municipal district control within the larger Strathclyde Regional Council framework, after Rutherglen lost its own local council. Then in 1996, as part of Rutherglen, it was reallocated to South Lanarkshire council.

In line with its shared and shifting history, if we start to look even closer, we’ll discover not just connections to urban leisure in times past, but ghosts of multiple sorts still making their presence felt here, including ones that have survived from even further back than 1936 when the re-designed stadium opened…

The inner-city industrial landscape

By the 1930s, although the shipyards started to boom toward the decade’s end as the world re-armed in the run up to World War Two, Glasgow’s industrial might was already in decline. The tract of land on the east side of the Gorbals however – just grazing north eastern Govanhill to the south and stretching east into the fringes of Rutherglen – was still one of the most intensely industrialised areas of the city at the time.

This was Oatlands, Polmadie and Shawfield, home to such collosi as William Dixon’s Govan Iron Works (aka Dixon’s Blazes) and J & J White’s Chemical Works amongst many others.

But the workers and other residents locally needed some release from the industrial grind, and while factory owners, municipal bodies and civic and professional clubs provided much of these facilities in the form of parks, swimming baths, football grounds, tennis courts and bowling greens, in the post-war period innovative private enterprise focused on cinemas, from the first projection of moving pictures in 1895 to the arrival of sound in 1927.

By the time of cinema’s golden age of the 1930s picture houses had been joined in urban hubs by greyhound racing tracks, with the oval track and mechanical hare arrangement imported to Britain from the USA in 1926, as palaces of leisure and mass distraction.

While Shawfield was still heavily industrial, there were pockets of non-industrial space, and succumbing to the American trend, the stadium of financially struggling Clyde F.C. since 1898 next to Richmond Park agreed it could be used for greyhound racing while still also holding football matches.

The stadium was slightly altered to incorporate a greyhound track and re-opened to the public on 14th November 1932, eventually being sold outright to Shawfield Greyhound Racing Company Ltd (SGRC) in 1935, with a fully-transformed stadium boasting an American-style oval greyhound racetrack listed as having been completed in 1936.

When Shawfield part-shifted to racing track status in 1932, there were already four National Greyhound Racing Society tracks in Glasgow, plus three other independent tracks in the city, so Shawfield needed to stand out against its competitors. As an entertainment-cum-“sports” venue that was part of the gambling industry we shouldn’t be surprised then – in terms of the track’s defining features as it morphed further under full SGRC control – that the owners went for the style of the moment to lure folk in and add some swagger to proceedings: Art Deco.

This is where the iconic Shawfield Stadium gates come in and what drew your correspondent down there on a dry but typically cloudy July afternoon in 2021. Cyclling through the Gorbals, the contrast with other great enclosure of the area passed en route – the Southern Necropolis – couldn’t be starker.

One is a welcoming and tranquil green space, an oasis of biodiversity, history and sculpture amid the high-rise and mid-rise flats of Hutchesonstown and the warehouse district of Oatlands on its southern flank. The other is disjointed in feel and brutal in parts, a void encircled with hulking corrugated iron exteriors in places, clashing with earlier more delicate parts.

Shawfield is pervaded by a lifeless, unearthly air that permeates beyond the stadium…. people live nearby in sizeable numbers, it’s the streets that are devoid of life apart from traffic. What these enclosures have in common, however, is great entry points.

Gateways to escape: eternal and earthly

The Southern Necropolis gate lodge (1848) was designed by Charles Wilson (1810-1863), an architect with a huge output of work all over Scotland, famed for such other buildings as 1-16 Park Circus and 18-21 Park Terrace in Glasgow, Strathbungo Free Church, Glasgow Academy, and Lews Castle in Stornoway. The architect of the Shawfield Stadium gates is likely to have been John Easton, whose catalogued output is minimal.

His design oversight can only be inferred, as Easton is named as the Stadium’s architect in the Dictionary of Scottish Architects, so we assume he must have also fashioned the gates. Information surrounding the design history of the site is so scant though that a degree of conjecture is necessary. Closer inspection of the site however, turns up other affirmative clues.

The first thing that strikes you about the gates is the stepped arch or pyramidic ziggurat design – a style originating in Mesopotamia (largely within what is now Iraq) which was re-ignited in the Art Deco era, enlivening everything from New York skyscapers to suburban fireplaces. It was seen everywhere, including in the proliferation of shops, garages and dancehalls built in the era.

The ziggurat also defined the totalisator board (or ‘toteboard’) inside the stadium. It was perfecly suited to the passtime’s central engine, betting, constantly drawing the gambler’s eye to their possible win or lose scenario. Only two things mattered here: the dogs on the track (though not their health or happiness) and the money.

The ziggurat toteboard became a feature of other 1930s-built racing tracks, a famous survivor being that at Walthamstow Stadium racing track in north east London completed in 1932.

Interestingly the stadium entrance and toteboard at Walthamstow, while no longer part of a greyhound racing track, is a listed building – Grade II listed on the system operated by Historic England. It only became listed in 2007 but its key features have been restored while incorporated into a mixed usage housing and retail development.

Where Shawfield’s design differs most notably from Walthamstow is in its use of that most Glaswegian of surfaces, and the main reason I ventured here, the redoubtable ceramic tile…

The iconic photo of Shawfield Stadium gates in 1937 held by Glasgow City Archives at the Mitchell Library (photo 5 in this article) shows two extruding columns faced in what looks like tiling and topped with lamps, but the monochrome photograph makes it impossible to be certain of the surface material.

Seen in situ there’s zero doubt, as the grey captured by the camera’s lens is revealed as rich green tiling affixed to the bricks behind, smooth to the touch albeit much chipped, missing some tiles entirely, and crudely painted over at points.

Design-wise the ziggurat arrangement matches the old photo but on closer scrutiny something’s not quite right. The tiled columns don’t extrude in exactly the same way. What’s gone on here then? Nothing in fact. There were two sets of gates, these being the slightly less grand set although still impressive in their day. Thanks to Lost Glasgow for the tip.

Another discrepancy is the small flagpoles on the present gates, which don’t appear on the other set. We can see they later had a (now rusted) spotlight affixed to each. Flagpoles are common features of many Art Deco and Streamline Moderne buildings, particularly on corner sites.

Lack of documentation of the building means we don’t yet know if they were there at launch in 1936 or added later. Maybe we can find out…

Do you have any old photos or newspaper cuttings of either sets of gates that show them in better times? We’d love to see them if you do and optionally you can donate old images to our South Glasgow Archive, whether in digital or orginal format. Leave a comment or contact us on social media if so.

A twentieth century temple to flock to

Leaving the gates and cycling round to the opposite end of the site I came to the other stadium structure still abiding from the 1930s. Was it the stadium offices, perhaps a customer bar or cafe with cloakrooms and restrooms, or even a member’s club area? Were you ever in it?

Getting closer the design conveys aspects of both modernist and far eastern architecture, with the almost pagoda-style roof extending over the door reminiscent of Buddhist-influenced roof designs common to China, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere in East Asia.

Overall there’s a Japanese feel to this building when looked at in the round, with its minimal but precise use of ornamentation and vertical window arrangements. This echoes some of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s work which anticipated Art Deco modernism in the Art Nouveau era, with this pared-back style particularly evident at Hill House (built 1904) in Helensburgh and his posthumously realised House for an Art Lover (built 1989-1996) in Bellahouston Park.

While modernist in direction, it’s not fully attuned style-wise with the gates. Maybe the architect didn’t have a singuar vision he wanted to project and was happy to vary styles within the larger stadium site, or perhaps he did and the business wouldn’t allow it. A third possibility is that John Easton didn’t design both structures, so someone else was involved in one of them…

In turn the upper floor windows themselves are metal-framed, possibly Crittall windows. Crittall became the go-to window fitting supplier in many 1930s buildings due to its manufacturing prowess producing windows of reliably tight-fitting seal and weatherproof durability. These ground level windows however are more indeterminate vis-à-vis their material.

Crittall became so successful they even built a village of modernist housing for their workers in Silver End, Essex in 1926-27, contracting a range of architects to design them, most notably Paisley-born architect Thomas S Tait (of 1938 Empire Exhibition fame), on behalf of John James Burnet & Partners practice. Tait designed the manager’s house ‘Wolverton’ among others pictured here.

There’s a well-preserved interwar Crittall advertising sign in the corridor of The Engine Shed, Historic Environment Scotland’s premises in Stirling, which I spotted in 2018 when visiting to attend a conference.

Here too, as at the gates, the green tiles play an ornamental and shape-accentuating role, and suggest at their deployment at the gates by the same architect, John Easton, although green tiles especially in tenement wally closes are ubiquitous across Glasgow.

Meanwhile, below the doorway, a surrounding terrazzo stone step carries the staff, or punters, in.

Zooming closer in, a look at the window panes reveals a pattern. It’s impossible to confirm, but if these are the original panes then its fitting that the patterned glass has a playful Art Deco design.

Another possibility is that this ‘textured glass’ or ‘figured rolled glass’ was fitted later, with patterned panes felt to be in sympathy with the surrounding period style. I’d like to think these were original but haven’t found a match to pin down the production period yet. There’s a great selection of Victorian, Edwardian and 20th Century patterned textured glass collated here.

Either way, the pattern detail has a Jazz Modern swish to it that adds a little zing to proceedings. Have you seen this style elsewhere? Maybe someone could bring it back into production!

The many lives of Shawfield Stadium

Few today will mourn the decline of greyhound racing but Shawfield has hosted many other events over the years, such as music concerts and of course plenty of its original activity: football.

From big cup to local club games, it’s been home to plenty of memorable outings for Glaswegians and other Scots who follow the beautiful game, and a key site for Scotland’s sporting heritage, both as home to Clyde F.C., host to visitors prior to 1932, and an ongoing site for matches even while a greyhound track.

In turn, it’s been incorporated into ‘Football’s Square Mile’ by The Hampden Collection project to develop the world’s biggest outdoor football museum centred on the birthplace of the modern game of passing football, namely First Hampden in Crosshill, its successor pitches Second and Third Hampden in the Southside, and connected historic Glasgow (and now Rutherglen) football sites.

Shawfield has a more troubling history too. The site of J & J White’s Chemical Works was built on the lands of Shawfield Estate, owned by Daniel Campbell (1671/2–1753). As Mark McGregor notes in our #SouthsideSlaveryLegacies article on The Tobacco Lords:

“Campbell himself, however, acquired much of his wealth in trading tobacco for iron ore which provided him the means to purchase the Shawfield Estate, next to Oatlands and Polmadie, in 1707… Campbell made a considerable amount from both the trade of tobacco and more directly, in the trading of enslaved people.

The house and estate were passed down to his son Walter who then sold it to the chemical works firm J&J White in 1788. Due to ongoing contamination issues, the site which included the 150-year old Shawfield House was pulled down in the late 1960s.”

The house can been seen still standing eerily amid the Chemical Works complex in this 1967 photo, part of the John R Hume collection in Historic Environment Scotland’s Canmore archive.

This was it closer-up, in 1966, again photograped by Hume while on his odyssey of capturing Glasgow’s decaying industrial heritage.

Environmental legacies of Shawfield’s industrial past

The planning application to demolish Shawfield Stadium and redevelop the land with homes was submitted on 5th November 2021. South Lanarkshire Council responded 22nd December requesting an Environmental Imapct Assessment (EIA) of the proposed works before the application can progess to a final decision, an EIA as yet unreceived at time of publication. This is required as a large area around Shawfield is known to be contaminated with chromium, including hexavalent chromium 6, a poisonous and carcinogenic substance toxic to humans.

Chromium ore processing residue was a byproduct of the aforementioned White’s Chemical Works which operated on the site between 1820 and 1967 producing mainly bichromate of potash, for use in the tanning and textile dying industries. The manufacturing process produced a significant ratio of unusuable chromium byproduct including chromium 3 and hexavalent chromium 6, the latter of which is highly soluble and mobile in the environment.

Over the decades up to 2.5 million tonnes of chromium-containing waste was dumped by White’s – legally at the time – buried mainly in claypits and disused mines all around this area and elsewhere in Glasgow. Toxic clouds of chromium dust were also present in the air at high levels for many decades inside certain parts of the industrial complex.

In 2019 The Herald newspaper spoke to descendants of workers at the plant for an article: ‘Polmadie Burn: Everyone knew chromium waste was damaging health’.

“Workers at the chemical plant responsible for polluting a large area of the south of Glasgow were known as ‘White’s whistlers’, due to the damage caused to their nasal packages by cancer-causing chromium, relatives have claimed.

Men who worked for the company, J&J White’s of Rutherglen, came home clouded in dust, many bearing ‘chrome holes’ – burns in the skin, and with septums ruined by chemicals they had inhaled.”

In recent years large-scale remediation works have been carried out in various parts of the area (both within Glasgow and South Lanarkshire’s municipal borders) to measure and mitigate the leaching of chromium into both the water system and into new structures built locally, by containing or diverting it, by converting chromium 6 in-situ into the less toxic chromium 3, and to a lesser extent by removing it, but the sheer scale of the dumping has made this a huge challenge that’s only partly been addressed.

In the meantime, the chromium 6 continues to leach out, turning Polmadie Burn luminous yellow-green as recently as both 2019 and 2021, causing the waterway and local playing fields to be fenced off and raising alarm among residents and public representatives.

For this, unfortunately, is the most concentrated area of chromium-polluted urban land in the UK by an order of magnitude. While it was produced elsewhere, for several decades J & J White’s gained a near monopoly on bichromate of potash production in Britain from their Shawfield complex, accounting for 70% of UK output in the 1930s.

For now the outcome for the site remains uncertain, and environmental safety concerns are paramount, but the remaining Art Deco fragments of Shawfield Stadium provide a stepping stone into the longer shared history and memories of the area, as well as the interwar era’s design trends.

However development plans proceed, it would be worthwhile keeping these historic elements intact, restoring them, and considering their addition to the register of listed structures in Scotland, as they’re local landmarks and part of the area’s unique character and social history, beacons of its shared past in an area dominated by new developments.

There are good memories here, alongside bad ones, when you get the full measure of the place. Some spectres though might be best not disturbed too hastily until we can figure out how to better tame them. Until then, as sure as it rains in Glasgow, they’ll keep haunting us.

What are your memories of Shawfield Stadium? Tell us in the comments below.

By Deirdre Molloy

Published: 14th October 2022

This is the third in our #SouthsideModerne series of articles, documenting the range of Art Deco and other interwar modernist buildings south of the Clyde for the two-decade Centenary of Art Deco architecture and design.

Follow the hashtag on Twitter and Facebook.

Read part 1: James Miller’s Art Deco Leyland Motors

Read part 2:  Renewing Govan Lyceum’s Faded Ambition

—

Sources & Further Reading:

John Easton, architect (1898-1977); entry in Dictionary of Scottish Architects

Charles Wilson, architect (1810-1863); entry in Dictionary of Scottish Architects

Southern Necropolis Gate Lodge, 316, Caledonia Road, Gorbals; Buildings At Risk website

Friends of Southern Necropolis website

Lanarkshire racetrack faces uncertain future with environmental report needed for planning application to proceed; Daily Record, 19th Sept 2022

Polmadie Burn: Everyone knew chromium waste was damaging health; The Herald, 6th March 2019

Whites Chemical Company; Rutherglen Heritage Society

Soil 2017 | Lecture 3 Characterisation of Cr(VI)-Contaminated Urban Soils; online talk by Professor Margaret Graham, University of Edinburgh for the International Institute for Environmental Studies, 20th Mar 2017

Contamination tests over toxic green burn in Glasgow; BBC News website; 12th April 2019

SEPA called to investigate ‘toxic’ Glasgow burn; Glasgow Evening Times, 26th April 2021

The Toxic Burn, Future Climate Info, undated 2021

Football’s Square Mile; The Hampden Collection

Image Sources:

Glasgow Road, Shawfield Chemical Works General view from NE showing SE side of works, 23 July 1967, John R Hume Collection, SC 595654. Copyright: Canmore / Historic Environment Scotland

Glasgow, oblique aerial view, taken from the SW, centred on Shawfield Stadium, 31 August 1998, SC 1685599. Copyright: Canmore / Historic Environment Scotland

Shawfield stadium boundary wall and gates, 1937. Copyright: Glasgow City Archives, Mitchell Library

Totalisator Board at Shawfield; Burrell Collection Photo Library, 1955 Survey. Copyright: Glasgow Life

Walthamstow Stadium toteboard, August 2006. Copyright: Futureshape, Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Refurbished frontage of Walthamstow Stadium, 25 April 2017. Copyright: Acabashi; Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Glasgow, Shawfield Chemical Works General View, 27 March 1967, John R Hume Collection, SC 591198. Copyright: Canmore / Historic Environment Scotland

Glasgow Road, Shawfield Chemical Works View from SSE showing SW and SE fronts of old mansion house ‘Shawfield’, 11 September 1966, John R Hume Collection, SC 591469. Copyright: Canmore / Historic Environment Scotland

All other images copyright of the author, July 2021 (Shawfield) and April 2020 (Southern Necropolis).

The post Art Deco fragments of Shawfield Stadium appeared first on SGHET.

In a recent blog post I highlighted material from our archive collection on the No M77 and Pollok Free State protests. I have since been in conversation with artists Hannah Brackston and Dan Sambo, currrent artists in residence in the ward of Pollok.

Here they describe how they have been drawing upon the story of Pollok Free State in workshops with young people, and I share some more clippings from our archive to help illustrate the activism of the young people involved in this piece of local history.

(If you are unfamiliar with the story of the protests and the camp you can read our previous posts here and here.)

Can you give us an overview of the workshops and activities you have been doing in Pollok? What do you think it is about the story of Pollok Free State that interests young people?

There are aspects of the Pollok Free State story that instantly capture the imagination of young people, in particular details of the camp itself, tree houses and living together in the woods. These echo many of the ideas of how they would like to use the woods themselves and make their own spaces within it today.

In 2018 we had the opportunity to be part of Scotland’s contribution to the Venice Biennale of Architecture. The curator Peter Mcaughey commissioned different Scottish artists to engage with young people to explore the Biennale theme of ‘Free space’.

We were introduced to some local stakeholders in Pollok and a synergy emerged between the history of Pollok Free State and a piece of woodland, Damshot Woods, which was being occupied by St. Paul’s High School as an outdoor classroom. This became the focus of our project taking workshops in this space with local young people.

We collaborated with teachers John Harper and Kirsty Webster to engage a group of pupils in a 3 day long workshop in the woods. Together we went on a journey that involved learning about the PFS directly from Gehan McLeod, a central figure in the camp and co-founder of charity GalGael, and creating temporary structures to occupy an outdoor classroom in the woods.

We wanted the kids to be inspired as we were by the Pollok Free State history. Did they know that the woods beside their school had this powerful story to tell? We found it interesting to engage young people with aspects of the PFS story; What is a peaceful occupation? What does it mean to create ‘free space’, where they feel safe, governed by their rules and their ideas and values? Making a flag; making a passport; making a shelter; marking the boundaries of something; discussing what is individual and what is collective while learning about nature by being immersed in it.

Following this project we went on to use these same woodlands with different groups of pupils at St. Pauls and local families through Phase one of the Glasgow Life Artists in Residence for the Creative Communities Project. These workshops included map-making and sign-making projects with the pupils – during which we took time as part of our workshop plan to discuss and inform the pupils about the important local history of the Pollok Free State.

We invited local families into the woods on another occasion to walk, explore and make a fire together. We brought photos and old maps to discuss the area’s heritage and several of the parents shared their memories of visiting the camp as children themselves.

Over the summer of 2021 as part of Glasgow Life’s Phase 2 of the Artist in Residency Programme we ran a series of events for families in Damshot Woods – ‘weekends in the woods’. These were Sunday afternoons where we brought local people and their kids together to do creative activities and learn about specific aspects of the woodlands nature and heritage.

Each week we made small interventions that were aimed at improving accessibility and habitats, from bespoke bird box to making trails and signage. The culmination of this was bringing these families together to explore ideas for their own self-organisation and continued occupation of the woods. We hope this work may be able to continue in the spring.

During August and November in 2021 together with Sarah Diver-Lang (SGHET Board member) and with support from the Wheatley Foundation, we developed a project called ‘If Tree’s Could Talk’. Working directly with two groups of young people, The Village Storytelling Centre, and Turf Youth Project we delivered a series of workshops for the groups that explored the stories of Pollok’s significant trees and why they matter. We shared the story of the PFS as one of the starting points and watched parts of the BBC documentary ‘Bird Man of Pollok’ with the groups. We went on to use this as inspiration for making large textile banners for COP26.

The banners were made and designed by the young people – from dying and printing the fabric with natural pigments to cutting out closing words and slogans that reflected their responses. The banners were kindly displayed at GalGael in Govan during part of COP26 alongside their Govan Free State Programme. This project will continue January – March 2022 – working alongside tree planting initiatives in Greater Pollok as part of COP26 legacy in Glasgow.

How do you think people’s relationship with green spaces has changed in the last few years? What is the relationship like with Pollok Park and its local communities, and how have things changed now compared to the time of Pollok Free State?

There is an increasing amount of local activity taking place (COVID aside) by groups and schools to engage people more in their green spaces in Greater Pollok. Most of the schools are running lots more outdoor learning programmes, the area has seen new community gardens developed by local people in the last years and walking groups set up to meet local health and wellbeing needs.

Locally in Greater Pollok, among those who were involved in PFS at the time, there is a great deal of collective pride given in sharing memories. The area has changed dramatically since the occupation, with the construction of both the M77 and Silverburn shopping centre. Partly for this reason it feels as important as ever to hold onto that piece of local history and the strength that resounded around it.

Not so many young people have heard about it – so there is potential for finding new ways to creatively retell the story – especially today when many of the same social and environmental issues raised by people through the PFS camp feel as relevant as ever.

We would love to do some further work with local people to develop a plan for how this story could be commemorated through a permanent piece of public art, an installation or even through some form of strategic planting/event in the ward itself.

Thank you to Hannah Brackston and Dan Sambo for sharing their exciting work with us. In the story of Pollok Free State, it is inspiring to see that the space created, the activities that were undertaken there, and the makeshift schools of learning that so resonated with the local school children in the 90s, can continue to do so today.

It is also powerful to see how the act of remembering this piece of local heritage and the motivations behind the gathering of these communities in that public space, still resonates in new generations and can be used to help open up conversations to better construct our environment and our relationship with it.

We look forward to Hannah and Dan’s future workshops and can’t wait to see how people continue to engage with this piece of local heritage.

You can have a look through other elements of our Pollok Free State collection in the SGHET Archive here:  Pollok Free State: Archive Selections and Reflections

By Romy Galloway

Published: 24th March 2022

The post The Pollok Free State Story Connecting with Young People Decades On appeared first on SGHET.

Bruce Downie immerses himself in some of the oldest known references to Polmadie, and explores the history of the ancient hospital. Get lost in a world of medieval references and travel through Polmadie’s history via kings, popes, pigs and recycling.

In the 19^th century, Polmadie, just east of what we now know as Govanhill, was one of the busiest industrial areas of Glasgow. Notable businesses located there included Dübs and Company – later called the North British Locomotive Company who made steam trains that were sent all over the world – and Alley and McLellan, engineers who built steamships and the renowned Sentinel steam waggon, spelled with two g’s.

There has long been debate about the meaning of the name Polmadie’. The most commonly accepted interpretation is provided in Colonel James Robertson’s ‘Gaelic Topography of Scotland’ (1869) that Polmadie is derived from two Gaelic words, ‘Pol’ for pool and ‘maddah’ for wolf, translating as ‘the wolf’s pool’ or ‘the pool haunted by wolves’.

Today, Polmadie is still largely an industrial area of Glasgow, home to the Alstom train depot, one of the largest train depots in Scotland, where Virgin Trains and other operators stable and repair their carriages. It is also home to the Viridor Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre, previously the Polmadie Refuse Works (which opened in 1958).

However, Polmadie and in particular the site of the Viridor Recycling Centre, on Polmadie Road near the junction with Calder Street, was the likely location of the Ancient Hospital of Saint John the Apostle, or the Hospitti Sanct Johannis de Polmadde in Cliddesdale as it would have been known in official documents. Built in the thirteenth century or possibly even earlier, this hospital was for the relief of pensioners, poor men and women, and possibly as a place of rest for pilgrims and travellers.

Establishing exactly when the hospital was created is impossible. Some historians have speculated that it was built in the twelfth century, during the reign of David I (1124-1153) because of the interest he took in the area, giving the Lands of Govan to the Church of Glasgow and granting Rutherglen the status of a royal burgh but a connection to the hospital cannot be proven.  According to the ‘Origines Parochiales Scotia’, published in 1851, the hospital was known to be in existence during the reign of Alexander III (1249 to 1286) because of a charter granted to the hospital by Robert the First in 1316. In that charter, the ‘Registerum Episcopatus Glasguenis’

‘Be it known that we confirm to the Master, brothers and sisters of the hospital of Polmadie, near Ruglen, all the rights and privileges they were accustomed to have in the time of my predecessor, King Alexander, and we have forbid that anyone should presume to oppress or annoy the said Master, brothers or sister against this our confirmation.’

The Mastership or ‘de custodia’ of the hospital was a coveted position but perhaps not as influential as some hoped. The remote location may have suited the residents but may also have been frustrating to men of ambitious temperament, eager to advance their careers.

“Oot o’ the world and into Polmadie”

An old phrase ‘oot o’ the world and into Polmadie’ may indicate just how far the hospital was from court or civic life but Polmadie has always been an outlier of sorts, a kind of no man’s land because it has always been divided by the boundary between Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire and between the parishes of Govan and Cathcart.

In fact, in the 19^th century, when modern municipal burghs were being established and new boundary lines were being drawn part of the area could not be easily classified, and was thus known for a while, at least informally, as No Man’s Land.

Despite being defeated at Bannockburn just a few years earlier, in 1319 Edward II still harboured ambitions of conquering Scotland, much like his father before him. From the relative safety of York, he ineffectually nominated several English priests to Glasgow prebends, including Guliemus de Houk as Master of the Hospital in Polmadie, but Guliemus was unlikely to have ever served in that position.

That same year, Bishop Robert Wishart of Glasgow, a friend of King Robert, constituted Patrick Floker as ‘Master and Guardian of the Home’ with the power of ‘restraining the excesses and correcting the faults of the brothers and sisters therein or of removing them for their delinquency’.

In order to attend to his duties in Polmadie he was given dispensation for non-residence at his church on his lands in Kilbryde, provided that he took care that it was not left ‘destitute of the due celebration of divine duties.’

A sixteenth century link between Polmadie and Crosshill or earlier?

Floker would have been able to rely on revenues from the Lands of Polmadie which, tradition suggests, included what we know today as Crosshill. Proof that Polmadie and Crosshill were indeed linked only comes to light two hundred years later during the Reformation when land was secularised.

In 1564, the land was feued to Sir John Stuart of Minto, Knight, a Provost of Glasgow, by Robert, Bishop of Caithness, Provost of the Collegiate Church of Dumbarton, with the consent of Mathew, Earl of Lennox, the patron. The feu charter reads ‘All and singulars the five merk land of Polmadie and Crosshill’, a clear indication that the two places had been linked for some time, leading many historians to suggest and believe that Crosshill had been part of the outfield lands of the hospital.

The name of Crosshill probably comes from a cross that stood at the top of the hill, probably marking the southern boundary of the hospital’s lands. According to the Statistical Accounts of Scotland from 1845, – ‘the cross erected at the top of Crosshill was made of hard stone, ten feet high and three and a half feet broad, ornamented with various figures. The most remarkable has that of our saviour riding upon an ass. This religious monument fell, the sacrifice to the fury of a mob during the civil wars’, that is, during the seventeenth century.

Even so, these revenues were not quite sufficient for Floker to maintain divine services in Kilbryde and provide for the pensioners in Polmadie, so in 1320, the Bishop of Glasgow granted him part of the Lands of Little Govan, laying between the hospital and the western boundary of those lands, probably taking in some parts of present-day Govanhill.

Strains, strife & power struggles over the hospital in the medieval period

In 1333, the Earl of Lennox, granted the Master ‘a charter of exemption’, freedom from all kinds of services, burdens, and extractions both as regards their own house (the hospital) and the Church of Strathblane. In 1334, Adam, son of Alan, Burgess of Dumbarton lent the Hospital a sum of money ‘in their necessity’.

On the 18^th of May, 1347, Margaret, wife and Queen to David II, ‘by grant of her Lord the King, made on her behalf from the Bishop of Glasgow, William de Kirkintulloch, Master of the Hospital.’

On May 10^th, 1391, a precept from Bishop Glendoning of Glasgow directed the Master, brothers and sisters to receive Gillian de Vaux and ‘grant her all the rights due to a sister and portioner of their house during her lifetime.’

In 1403, the Earl of Lennox appointed William de Cunnyngham, Vicar of Dundonald as Master of the Hospital, but the Bishop of Glasgow opposed this appointment, claiming that Cunnyngham ‘had intruded himself into the administration of the Poor’s House of Polmadie’. The bishop laid claim to ‘the right of presentation’ and threatened Cunnyngham with excommunication if he dared to take up the post.

This tension between the Church and the Lennoxes continued until a summit in 1424, held in the west chapel of Edinburgh Castle where Duncan, Earl of Lennox, surrendered to Bishop William Lauder, any and all supposed rights he and his progenitors had to the hospital.

The beginning of the end for Hospital of St John the Apostle in Polmadie

In 1427, Bishop Cameron, with the consent of the chapter, erected the Hospital and the Church of Strathblane into a prebend of Glasgow Cathedral, basically ensuring that the Bishop retained the patronage. This was confirmed by a Papal Bull, signed by Pope Martin V, two years later, in 1429.

The Bishop then appointed a clerk ‘cantu bene et notabiliter instructus’ to manage Polmadie and Strathblane. The clerk was instructed or ordained to raise the money to pay a vicar in the Church in Strathblane and to teach and instruct four chorister boys in singing, giving them 16 merks annually for sustenance.

This arrangement was almost certainly the beginning of the end for the Hospital at Polmadie. The final blow came around 1453, when the Lands of Polmadie, including Crosshill, (those parts of Crosshill in Govan parish anyway) and the Church of Strathblane were without any apparent objection from Bishop Muirhead of Glasgow, disjoined from the hospital and handed over the Collegiate Church of Saint Mary in Dumbarton, which had recently been founded by Isabella, Countess of Lennox.

Nothing now remained to the Ancient Hospital of its original endowments, and we can only conjecture that without sufficient financial support it fell into decline and eventually closed. That decline may have been accelerated by the building of a new hospital in 1470, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, established with similar aims, of which only one part remains, known today as the Provand’s Lordship, near Glasgow Cathedral.

Nothing remains of the hospital at Polmadie, but the best evidence for its location comes from a number of sources. Joan Blaeu’s map of 1654, shows a house near a place called Pomadi, which may have been the original hospital building, long fallen into disuse, but could equally have been a small settlement because other villages are indicated in the same way.

More conclusive proof comes from a well-documented and tragic incident which took place in 1685, in the village of Old Polmadie, believed to have been built around the ruins of the hospital, in which three Covenantors were apprehended and executed for their beliefs. The Covenantors were buried in the churchyard of Old Cathcart Parish Church and are known to this day as The Polmadie Martyrs.

In 1755, the Roy Military Survey, the first systematic map of Scotland, shows a number of buildings in Polmadie, a clear indication that there had been a village in that location for a number of years.

In 1793, according to The Statistical Account of Scotland, there were ‘vestiges of religious houses’ in the grounds of the farm-house in the village, much older than the farm itself, which were assumed to be part of the ancient hospital or of its outbuildings.

According to the census, in 1851, there were fifty miner’s families living in Polmadie and over two-thirds of them were Irish. There were two main streets in the village one called Young’s Row and the other called Paterson’s Row.

The ‘vestiges of religious houses’ and the village itself had been built over by the late nineteenth century and replaced by tenements, schools, churches and shops, part of a much larger thriving area, but the farmhouse itself remained in place until around 1914, downgraded to a piggery, surrounded and eventually overwhelmed by industry.

Thankfully, its appearance on modern maps, on the site currently occupied by the Viridor Recycling Centre, provides us with the most likely location of the ancient hospital.

By Bruce Downie

Published: 19th August 2021

Image sources:

1. The Viridor Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre, Polmadie Road (photo by Bruce Downie)

2. Polmadi in ‘Praefectura Renfroana, vulgo, dicta Baronia. The Baronie of Renfrow’ From Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654; reproduced by kind permission of the National Library of Scotland

3. Polmadie in The Roy Military Survey, 1747-1755; accessed via National Library of Scotland maps online; reproduced by kind permission of the British Library

4. Polmadie area in Ordnance Survey, 1858; reproduced by kind permission of the National Library of Scotland

5. Polmadie in Ordnance Survey, 1910; reproduced by kind permission of the National Library of Scotland

6. The Viridor Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre, Polmadie Road (photo by Bruce Downie)

The post Polmadie and the Ancient Hospital of St John the Apostle appeared first on SGHET.

My great aunt Mary died when I was a baby. I don’t recall meeting her. She was my father’s maternal aunt. My mother told me when I was older that she was a nurse during World War One and showed me a family album with her photo in nurse’s uniform.

When my parents died, I inherited the album. I went to look at it in 2015, as I knew there was a photo of Mary’s brother, Thomas, who was killed 100 years ago at the battle of Loos, and I wrote about him.

Sometime later, I was looking at the National Archives website and saw that nurses’ records had now been digitised. I ordered a copy of the records not knowing what I would receive. It turned out to be forty plus pages. These were not in any order and took me some time to sort. Although there are some missing, they still give a remarkably clear idea of her work as a nurse from when she enrolled in the Territorial Forces Nursing Service in 1909 until she finally retired from it (renamed Territorial Army Nursing Service in 1921) in 1933.

I had noticed in her records that although most correspondence was sent to the family home in Queen Mary Avenue, Crosshill, the occasional item was sent to the Headquarters of an organisation called the Glasgow and West of Scotland Co-Operation of Trained Nurses in Sardinia Terrace. Sardinia Terrace, I found, is not far from here, it is the  top end of Cecil Street. I later attended Hillhead Primary School, and for seven years must have – unbeknownst to me – have been very close to where my great-aunt was located.

As part of the Hidden Histories team, I made a visit to the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre. In addition to the suffrage material we had asked to see, various other material relating to women’s work had been put aside for us. One of these was the 1933 Annual Report of the Nurses’ organisation-and it showed by great-aunt’s name on it! Since then I have been trying to find out more, both about where my great-aunt served and about the organisations she belonged to.

This is a timeline of her life. It includes archival details, such as the list of equipment required for overseas nurses, and her arrival at the hospital when it was a few “partially constructed buildings in a sea of mud:”

25^th December 1877             

Born 3 Nellfield Place Old Machar, Aberdeenshire, and registered in 1878.

1891 CENSUS                       

Still with parents in Old Machar.

1901 CENSUS

With parents at 37 Finlay Drive  Dennistoun, Glasgow.

1902-1906

Trained at Western Infirmary.

July 1906

Mary became a member of the Co-operation of Trained Nurses in Sardinia Terrace. This is the first time her name appears in the list of nurses in the Society. Mrs Elder, Govan philanthropist, was previously president of the co-operation.

12^th March 1909       

Enrolled in Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS) as Staff Nurse. The TFNS was established by R. B. Haldane (March 1908) following the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act (1907). It was to provide nursing staff for the twenty-three territorial force general hospitals planned for the United Kingdom in the event of war. Hospitals were allocated a staff of ninety-one trained nurses and included two matrons, sisters, and staff nurses, supervised by a Principal Matron.

November 1909

A bazaar raises over £4000 for the Co-Operation.

1911 CENSUS

Location unknown.

21^st December 1914  

Mobilised. Stationed at Scottish Military Hospital No 3 (Stobhill)

26^th September 1915

Mary’s brother is missed presumed killed at the Battle of Loos.

21^st December 1915  

Still at Stobhill. Report on Mary by Matron Jean Chapman:

“Miss Mary M Geddes was mobilized on the 21^st December 1914 and has served under me for twelve months. Her ward work has been very satisfactory. She has taken an interest in instructing and training the orderlies and has got good work from them. She is capable, punctual and her influence generally is very good. I think she is well suited for the position she holds at present.”

Captain John Gracie (Medical Officer at Stobhill) writes that she is “fit for active service.” Report is signed also by Principal Matron Helen Gregory Smith.

21^st December 1916  

Still at Stobhill. Report on Mary by Matron Alicia Hope Kerr (originally from Leith):

“She is a good nurse, punctual, energetic, capable in her work and kind to her patients. Miss Geddes has acted Sister with satisfaction.”

4^th April 1917

Mary signs Army Form W 3548 agreeing to serve overseas.

12^st December 1917  

Still at Stobhill Report on Mary by Matron Alicia Hope Kerr:

“A good surgical nurse and has had experience in eyes, nose and throats and skin wards. She is punctual, energetic, reliable, and very kind to her patients. Miss Geddes is considered suitable for foreign service.”

15^th December 1917 

Captain R Barclay Ness (RAMC) formally certifies that Mary is in “a fit state of health to undertake nursing duties in a military hospital abroad.”

NURSES’ OVERSEAS ACTIVE SERVICE EQUIPMENT

The following articles are to be provided by all members when proceeding on active service abroad.

Uniform only is to be taken; no plain clothes are required.

An allowance of £8. 5s. for active service equipment, and £7. 10s. for camp kit will be given to each member.

1 Trunk not to exceed 30 x 24 x 12 inches
1 Hold-all
1 Cushion with washing covers.
1 Rug
1 Pair gum boots
1 Small candle lantern
1 Small oil-stove and kettle
1 Flat-iron
1 Looking glass
1 Roll-up, containing knife, fork, dessert-spoon, and teaspoon
1 Cup and saucer
1 Tea-pot or infuser
1 Secure tent strap

Instruments
2 Pairs scissors
2 Pairs forceps
2 Clinical thermometers

Camp Kit
1 Portable camp bedstead
1 Bag for ditto
1 Pillow
1 Waterproof sheet, 7ft. by 4ft. 6in.
1 Tripod washstand with proofed basin, bag, and bath
1 Folding chair
1 Waterproof bucket
1 Valise or kit bag to hold the above-mentioned articles with owner’s name painted upon it.

STAFF NURSES’ TIMETABLE

6 a.m. Called
6. 30 a.m. Prayers
6. 35 a.m. Breakfast
7 a.m. Wards
9 a.m. Light lunch and dress
9. 30 a.m. Wards
12. 30 p.m. Lunch
1 p.m. Wards
4 or 5 p.m. Tea
4. 30 or 5. 30 p.m. Wards
8 p.m. Dinner
10. 30 p.m. Bedrooms
11 p.m. Lights out

Times off
Three hours every day, from
9. 30 to 12. 30 or
2 to 5
5 to 8
Half a day every week from 2 to 10
A whole day every month from 6 p.m. previous day to 10 p.m. following day.

Staff nurses on night duty
Hours from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.
A night off once a month
Two months consecutive duty

20^th January 1918    

Mary joins 73 General Hospital and starts her journey to Trouville at Talbot Road Railway Station (later Blackpool North) and then crosses the channel on the HMT Courtfield.

This was a “Base Hospital.” They were part of the casualty evacuation chain, further back from the front line than the Casualty Clearing Stations. In France and Flanders, the British hospitals were generally located near the coast, often in pre-war buildings such as seaside hotels. They were close to a railway line, in order for casualties to arrive (some also came by canal barge); and were near a port where men could be evacuated for longer-term treatment in Britain.

24^th January 1918    

According to the hospital War Diary:

“After many delays and much discomfort, owing to overcrowding and shortage of rations, the Transport reached le Havre at 7am on 24^th January.”

After their journey from Blackpool to le Havre, the Units marched to a rest camp. On the 25^th, a paddle steamer took them to Trouville, where a band from the adjacent Convalescent Camp welcomed them. At that stage, the camp consisted of “partially constructed buildings in a sea of mud.” In addition “the nurses’ quarters were not nearly ready for occupation, none of the Ward Blocks were completed, there were no paths, and the site was littered with builders’ debris.” Everyone including officers had to help turn the site into the largest yet constructed, with 2,500 beds. Luckily, they were on a ridge above the sea with a “wonderful view of the valley.”

23^rd February 1918  

Twenty-two more nurses and nursing VADs arrive. A VAD was a member of the Voluntary Aid Detachments with some basic training in nursing. The VADs carried out a range of voluntary positions including nursing, transport duties, and the organization of rest stations, working parties and auxiliary hospitals. Women were taught first aid, home nursing and hygiene by approved medical practitioners. They also took classes in cookery. Men were trained in first aid in-the-field and stretcher bearing. Talented VADs could take specialist classes to become a masseuse or use an x-ray machine. Famous VADs include Vera Brittain and Agatha Christie.

Start March 1918     

Work on plumbing and improving “very backward” electric light is ongoing but proves difficult due to heavy snowstorms and frost.

7^th March 1918         

First convoy of 399 patients arrives: “mostly stretcher cases.” On a daily basis, recovering patients are sent to Convalescent Depot No 14. On 26^th March for example, 458 patients are discharged from No 73. The hospital War Diary notes that patients had to be clothed first. In the three weeks in March that the hospital was operational it treated 3805 patients.

3^rd April 1918

40 RAMC reinforcements arrive.

During April  1918

By the end of April, the hospital had 67 General Surgery VADS out of an establishment of 124.

28th May 1918

Report on Mary from Matron Kathleen A Smith, 73 General Hospital in Trouville notes that Mary performed special duties in the field of surgical nursing and that she had acted as Sister in charge of a ward. Smith writes:

“A very good practical nurse but rather slow.”

Spring 1918

German Army breakthrough causes serious concern in Trouville.

June 1918

Concerns about possible attacks by hostile aircraft. Two wards per block were sandbagged and protective trenches dug. Hospital has “population of 3000.”

June –July 1918                   

American Hospital train takes patients to and from Trouville.

August 1918

Large number of admissions to hospital “a full train averaging 425 every third day.” Post Office built “very badly needed.”

15^th September 1918

Ophthalmic centre opened. It was a converted Nissen hut with waiting room, test room with two dark rooms, operating room, and work area for the optician.

October 1918

Hospital “severely taxed.” Many patients coming direct from front line rather than through usual chain of command. Over 1400 in this category, including 91 dangerously ill (20 being penetrating chest wounds). Hospital received additional staffing of Canadian nurses & doctors. The influenza outbreak also hit the hospital. “The nursing was very heavy.” Of the 4998 patients admitted during October; 4957 are discharged.

10^th October 1918                 

123 staff working at 73 General Hospital.

23^rd November 1918 

73 General Hospital visited by Princess Mary. This is the first post-war visit to France by a member of the Royal Family. Princess Mary herself trained as a VAD. She visited the “Eye Department.” My great-aunt’s annual evaluation in January 1919  states “she is especially fitted for ophthalmic nursing” so it would be nice to think that she was working there at the time of the Princess’s visit.

January 1919

Patients gradually being sent back to UK, as hospital winds down. Recovered patients kept amused by daily visits to the cinema, whist drives, and concerts.

21^st January 1919

Mary still at 73 General Hospital. Matron Kathleen A. Smith says:

“Her general professional ability is good, and she is especially fitted for ophthalmic nursing, her administrative capacity is very fair. Her power of initiative and ability to instruct others is good. With the exception of a rather abrupt manner of speech her vocal communications are good. Miss Geddes acted in charge of the ophthalmic block for a short time and gave satisfaction. She is fitted for promotion to Ward Sister.”

20^th March 1919       

No 37 Casualty Clearing Station commences move from Busigny, Northern France, to Deutz-Koln, Germany.

3^rd April 1919

Along with seven others, Mary now “on strength” at the Station.

2^nd June 1919

Visit to Deutz Cologne by Matron in chief Maud McCarthy.

3^rd April 1919

Mary now temporarily attached to Queen Alexandra Imperial Army Nursing Service and posted to 37 Casualty Clearing Station, Deutz, Cologne.

21^st July 1919

Mary temporarily assigned to Hospital Train No.14 for 4 days.

22^nd August 1919      

Mary returns to UK (Folkestone).

3^rd September 1919  

Mary demobilised.

November 1919

Mary registers with the newly created General Nursing Council for Scotland.

31^st March 1920

Proforma letter of thanks and given permission to retain TFMS Badge.

1920   

Approximate date of Mary’s photo. The considered opinion of Health Board Archivist Alistair Tough.

4^th January 1923      

Promotion to Sister in TANS confirmed as of 6 November 1922 confirmed.

9^th January 1929

Mary writes to Matron in Chief asking for her medals.

31^st January 1933

Mary resigns from TANS on account of age (she is now 55 years of age).

1933

Mary is still a member of the Co-operation of trained nurses, now located in Belhaven Terrace, Hyndland.

27^th February 1959

Mary dies in family home, Queen Mary Avenue, Crosshill.

By Ian McCracken, Archivist at Govan High School

Sources

• British Base Hospitals in France.
• British Medical Journal (BMJ).
• General Nursing Council for Scotland Applications 1919.
• HB6/4/55
• Campbell, H.F. Woolfenden. “A Record of Gunshot Wounds of the Knee-Joint: Treatment in a Base Hospital.” The Lancet (Volume 190, Issue 4902) 11 August 1917, Pages 185-194.
• Lyn McDonald’s Roses of No Man’s Land.
• “Report of the Surgeon-General of the Army”
• Royal Army Nursing Corps.
• Scarlet Finders website.
• TFNS application forms can still be found in service records.
• VAD Red Cross: Auxiliary Hospitals.
• War Diary of No 73 General Hospital, National Archives.

[SGHET would like to thank Ian McCracken for also donating to us a copy of a presentation he was due to give in Glasgow in 2020 which was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and other related video and audio oral history materials which are forthcoming. These have (and will be) placed in our Digital Archive. If you have any enquiries about these materials, or would like to access them, please get in touch with us. They will also be avaliable in our online archive once that is launched.]

This article is also part of a series of material we are publishing to coincide with the 150th Anniversary of the founding of Crosshill in 1871 as an independent police burgh before being annexed to the city of Glasgow in 1891. See #Crosshill150 on social media.

The post The True Story of a First World War Nurse from Crosshill appeared first on SGHET.

History teacher and new SGHET board member Thomas Oldham digs into the archaeological excavation at First Hampden Park and what the Archaeology Scotland volunteers are hoping to find at the old site of the world’s first international football stadium …

So, it’s day one here at First Hampden. The tension is palpable and the excitement bubbling, ahead of what is expected to be a special and historic moment for Scottish football. The away team are wearing yellow and have arrived early – though their captain appears to be running a little late – that’s Kieran (not Trippier), from Archaeology Scotland…

Kieran is a friendly and enthusiastic guy, and even has time to have a wee blether with me as we walk through the tunnel (of verdant green) towards his team (of volunteers…OK, OK, I’ll stop now)… Annoyingly he has already started answering my deep philosophical questions – he knows what idiots like me think of archaeology and is already infecting me with his enthusiasm. My inhibitions are not at all connected to the fact I’m English.

Is this the site of a fantastical early drubbing of England by Scotland (5-1) in 1882? I used to think that the English clearly built the first purpose built international football stadium somewhere in England and that we, the English, invented the passing game that we know today…but anyone here will tell you (correctly) that it was the other way around.

Quite what evidence they are hoping to find of the 5-1 drubbing I’m not sure, copious amounts of yeast from spilled celebratory pints? Huge chunks of chewed tobacco spat from  nervous English mouths? Maybe a cup?! Maybe there’s bleedin’ treasure down there! Who knows?

I am currently sitting in my loftily placed media box high in the North stand (i.e. my flat on Kingsley Avenue). As I look down, the team are now standing around in a circle (beautifully planted by volunteer gardeners David and Tahitia McCabe) and are discussing tactics and having a wee stretch. The topic of temperature drifts in the wind – it is uncharacteristically warm for a home game!

So, to ‘pitch’ out the week’s dig to you, the work will involve two plots in the beautiful Kingsley Gardens, an ultrasound scanning of the Hampden Bowls bowling green, and a dig in the trees in Queen’s Park recreation ground between the railway and skate park.

The bowling green ultrasound aims to seek out the centre spot and maybe some old pitch lines like penalty areas. The recreational ground dig aims to find evidence of the grandstand. And the rose garden dig hopes to find remains of the clubhouse.

We have maps, know roughly where all this was (before the sleepy Cathcart circle line rudely blasted its way across Southside), know what happened here, and therefore why it is such a significant site. So, why dig here? I ask.

Being an oft-harsh critic, a historian, and a history teacher who spends their life desperately drawing out explanation, explication, and justification from begrudging, opinionated teenagers, I really, really want to know why we (humanity) bother with things like this. Hopefully we will start to find some answers from this enthusiastic and open-minded bunch of (mostly volunteer – much respect!) archaeologists. It can’t just be an opportunistic moment to get coverage for the bowling club, via a tournament programme filler during Scotland’s first international tournament in a generation, can it?

As we walk and talk, Kieran excitedly says he doesn’t even know what size this pitch was, or how big the penalty areas were. No wonder Scotland won 5-1, aware of England’s ‘prowess’, they probably just put the penalty spot 30 yards up the pitch!

A little later on I catch up with the team deep in the woods of the recreation ground. I finally ask Kieran why they are here and what they hope to find. While politely ‘understanding’ my scepticism of digging for things we know about and have a clear map of, his enthusiasm for the dig is palpable and catching.

First and foremost it’s about finding things that relate to the structures he says – it would be really great to find traces of the old clubhouse, that’s the dream! That is, a piece of the foundations from what they think is the same building that now serves as clubhouse to Hampden Bowls (give or take the odd extension).

There is also talk of trying to find a piece of old turnstile – Hampden was the first ground to have had them! Kieran laughs. He’d even be chuffed with a button or two, at which point Detectorists is mentioned and, like that, a ring pull emerges from the top layer (date unkown, probably Irn Bru). Most importantly though it is about deepening that sense of place and the layered history of Southside Glasgow, something that we at SGHET also care a lot about.

Meanwhile, the team have taken the top layer off their plot and are in good spirits. So far, the artefact tray has a piece of a till (!) and a lovely old Glasgow brick from Paterson and Sons (which once stood at 522 Pollokshaws Road). After a wee chat about how to smash a till open and who might have been robbed, the brick leads the conversation. This brick correlates with others used in late 19^th century Glasgow. Is it a remnant of the grandstand? Or a piece of railway construction material? Or just a random old brick? Whatever it’s from, a locally made 19^th century brick seems a fitting first find to start this session of industrial archaeology.

You can find out more about Scottish brickmaking here and more about Archaeology Scotland’s excavations at First Hampden here.

By Thomas Oldham, SGHET Board Member.

The post First Hampden Archaeological Excavations appeared first on SGHET.

In August last year I posted an article on our blog attempting to give an overview of the story of the Pollok Free State. It spoke about the protest camp and the campaigns in the 1980s and early 1990s against the M77 motorway extension through southside communities. Since the article we have received some incredible donations to the SGHET Archive to help document and illustrate this story and piece of local heritage.

Donations of newspaper clippings, grassroots zines, posters and publications give some great details and insight into the story. Media clippings show the varying ways the media portrayed the protestors and the camp and items from the camp itself, like the PFS University enrolment form, give insight into the driving forces behind the movement. The collection also shows the work involved in organising the campaign of protest and how to inform and engage individuals and communities.

Thanks to these generous donations there is a lot to be found within the archive. The selection here speaks to the legacy of the protests and the camp, and  is punctuated throughout with memories and reflections on Pollok Free State from individuals who spent time in the camp.

Protests in the Media

A double-page spread in the Evening Times, October 1994, showing a photograph of the road construction cutting through large green fields with houses in the distance. A graphic on the left charts the route of the motorway through different communities amidst opposition, and includes an image of Arden bridge with the words “No death M-way. We don’t need” spray painted in red.

“The planned concrete will swallow up 95,000 square yards of rural land – some of it in Pollok estate. The land is recognised by Glasgow City Council as an important site of interest to nature conservation. The region can do nothing about this.”

The hotline listed also reported 68% of callers as being opposed to the road but also reported some individuals flooding the phone lines and voting repeatedly.

This poster was created as part of the S.T.A.R.R (Stop The Ayr Road Route) campaign to inform and engage Glasgow’s southside communities in opposition of the motorway extension. Designed to be hung in windows as a show of support, one side shows an image of trees in Pollok Estate and the words NO M77 overlaid. On the other, a timeline traces the proposals for and protests against, the motorway. It starts with the gifting of the Pollok Estate to the people of Glasgow and ends with the formation of the Pollok Free State camp.

The poster also details the aims of the S.T.A.R.R group, the organisations that form it, what people could do to get involved, and upcoming events of note. The events include a family day, a big shared meal at the camp, and a public meeting in City Halls. Notably, it also declares August 20^th as Pollok Free State Independence Day (by complete coincidence we were only 4 days off sharing our original blog post).

This 1994 photograph from The Scotsman shows protestors sitting with the NO M77 posters outside a council meeting. The story below reports on protestors breaking into the meeting.

The Scottish Daily Mail (March 1995) has a front-page banner dedicated to the “dramatic report and pictures.”

Researcher Dr Wallace McNeish on the legacies of Pollok Free State:

“While the anti-M77 alliance was ultimately unsuccessful in achieving its aims of stopping this particular motorway from being built, it was nevertheless part of a successful UK-wide protest movement against the then Tory government’s £23bn Roads for Prosperity programme. At its height in the mid-1990s, this movement included over 300 local opposition groups, with high-profile direct-action protests taking place at Twyford Down, Wanstead, Batheaston, Newbury and Fairmile as well as the south-side of Glasgow. What protests like those centred on the Pollok Free State showed was that very different constituencies of people can be together in dialogue and united action around a common cause. In the run-up to the 1997 General Election the government was under such political pressure that it slashed its unpopular road-building programme by more than two-thirds to £6bn and abandoned the most contentious of its remaining plans.”

Photograph showing women wearing face masks and holding a hand-painted banner that reads “for our children NO M77” with the lower half of the banner obscured. The article states that the protest was part of International Women’s Day and notes that the Pollok area is above average for asthma rates in children.

Women’s Environmental Network flyer with overleaf giving information on air pollution and offering advice on how to protest and take action against air pollution.

An image in the Daily Record (1994) shows a pair of protestors passing the time with some music at the offices of a construction firm Tarmac on Nithsdale Road.

Wallace McNeish:

“Sometimes environmentalism is painted as a middle-class type of politics that is cut off from the lives of so called ‘ordinary people.’  What the Pollok protests showed was that this is far from always the case. The residents of the Free State were often locals themselves – including its founder Colin MacLeod – and it simply could not have been developed over approximately two years without support from the adjacent working-class estates. Indeed, a key legacy of the Free State is the Gal-Gael Trust which grew out of Colin and Gehan Macleod’s commitment to providing training for the unemployed in Glasgow’s south-side communities.”

“It is notable that the eco-activism of the mid-1990s around the roads issue did not tend to frame the issue in terms of climate change – instead the issues of sustainability, pollution and amenity were to the forefront. It is also the case that new non-violent direct-action tactics were pioneered by Free State activists and other anti-road protesters, and have become part and parcel of the tactical repertoire of subsequent generations of eco-activists protesting unsustainable development, like the Extinction Rebellion movement.”

Inside the Camp

The Pollok Free State Passport above shows the symbol of PFS with figures in a circular emblem and details of foliage, animals, plants, and tools. In August 1994, when PFS declared independence these passports were handed out to over 1000 “citizens.”

The passport has sections inside to fill out details of passport number, Pollok name, adopted tree, and folds out into the Declaration of Independence, featuring a quote from Robert Burns’ “The Tree of Liberty.” The declaration references the history of land ownership in Scotland and outlines the need for connection to place and land for health and wellbeing.

Local protestor Helen Melone on her memories of a Free State:

“When I first visited Pollok as part of the protests, my favourite area was a patch of trees which were all cut down at the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. I’d adopted one of those trees as my own friendly tree and climbed it every time I went, even though there were a few rotten branches at the top. I’d put a rope round the trunk to help me climb it more easily.”

Above is a 3D scan of a stone carving by Colin Macleod from Pollok Free State. You can view the model in ‘matcap’ through the model inspector to see the skill of the stonework and the detail of the design. The design features Pollok Free State symbols, Earth First logos, elements referencing Native American and Aboriginal land rights, and Celtic stone carving akin to the medieval Govan school of design featuring interlace and hunter figures.

Feature on Pollok Free State campsite in the Spectrum section of Scotland on Sunday (1995). Images show a treehouse in Pollok Free State, with windows and a tarpaulin roof, and a banner hanging from the tree reading ‘RESPECT’, and view of the camp with a fire in the centre, seats, ladders, sculptures and sun coming through the trees. The journalist recalls spending time in the camp and speaking to those involved, giving a feel of the atmosphere:

“The gain outweighs the sacrifice. It’s a community, with warmth, companionship, shared meals around the fire, the healthy tiredness of the fresh air at the end of the day, the self-esteem of doing something worthwhile […] for every set of dreadlocks, every Visigoth t-shirt or willie winkie knitted hat, there is a campaigner in a Gore-tex anorak with newsreader hair. The startling thing is how wide a cross-section – of nationality, class, subculture – the campaigners represent.”

Wallace McNeish:

“During 1995 and 1996 I was a young Glasgow University PhD student who spent considerable time researching the protests against the M77 extension as part of a wider sociology project on the then burgeoning anti-roads protest movement in the UK. The Pollok Free State was the epicentre hub that facilitated and sustained a vital alliance between young radical eco-activists and community activists from the surrounding estates of Pollok and Corkerhill. I observed as the Free State morphed from a few tents around a campfire into a fortified encampment with outposts along the M77 route during its protest-action phase, to eventually become a colourful education oriented eco-hamlet with a wood-workshop, large central tree-house, public artworks, gardens, paths, and even a compost-toilet. My daughter Catriona was only a toddler at the time, and I remember her joy at the totem poles, walkways, and colourful spectacle of this ‘dear green place’ in the woods. Most of all though I remember the warmth and helpfulness of the people involved.”

Pollok Free State University enrolment form. Describes some of the activities at the camp that would have involved workshops and talks. The curriculum includes social history, living skills and creativity.

Postcard references the Criminal Justice Bill. Overleaf is handwritten note that reads “Hi Bigs, Got your call, hope to see you soon. I am going to Pollok this weekend. Tell Robo I miss him very much!!! Lots of love and peace, your big pal Big Ben”. The protests at Pollok Free State were also tied into protesting the Criminal Justice Act as it was passed in part to quell public gatherings and could be used to disband and remove the camp.

Helen Melone :

“I did spend a few overnights in tree houses and I’ve never been so cold in my life. My own flat in the West End was pretty poverty-stricken as well (no hot water and only a gas heater to stay warm) but it was better than staying in the camp. I remember having good conversations with Walter Morrison and he was the one who explained it best – how whole communities, like Corkerhill, were going to be cut off from each other by a huge, big road and cut off from their green spaces too. It was hard to imagine this, as plans and drawings didn’t quite convey the enormity of it all.”

Photo in Scotland on Sunday (February 1995), of carhenge stunt, showing upended and burnt out car, spray painted with NO M77, dug into the construction landscape for the motorway. The article details attempts by campaigners to drum up support, and quotes a conversation with a local woman and her children protesting in the camp.

Helen Melone:

“I remember there being a good balance of people from the local area at various points. I would meet interesting women who had different experiences of activism than me – I made some friends I’m still in touch with today many years later! The poverty-stricken flat I shared with my pal Iain hosted a load of people from Manchester Earth First, who came along to show their support and offered to help out – this was also the same night where a few of us stayed up all night making banners out of hospital sheets (saying No M77) with the intent of hanging them from the Finnieston crane the next day. All the people I met, whether fun, interesting or dangerous were worth getting to know, and all brought something different to my life.”

Earth First! “Busted in defence of mother earth?” leaflet giving advice on what to do if arrested during a protest. Offers contacts for legal support, and gives advice on rights if stopped, detained, or arrested.

The collection also holds a selection of documents from the Earth First offices (not pictured) that give great insight into the practicalities of organising the campaign of opposition to the M77, such as a booklet on how to liaise with the media, so how to contact news desks and journalists, and the importance of making sure your version of events reaches audiences. It also included different iterations of “the phone tree”’ a handwritten document with a changing series of numbers to call when security arrived at the camp, so that they could get people down to the camp to oppose eviction attempts or tree cuttings.

Helen Melone :

“I remember the day of 14th February (Valentine’s Day Massacre) where they activated the phone tree early – might have been as early as 5am, saying the diggers were coming into the camp. I don’t remember exactly how I got there from the West End, bus maybe – but I remember running through the back woods trying to get there faster, amid the awful sound of trees groaning as they were cut down (I still remember that to this day – a horrible groaning noise that could be heard from far away). When I got to the camp, all the trees on the other side of the wood (including my friendly tree) were all down and it was a mess over there – looked like a wasteland.”

Image in Scotland on Sunday (1995) of construction workers with chainsaws. Caption reads: “Chainsaw massacre…In the face of mounting protests the company is considering bypassing the gathering of tree houses, teepees and totem poles known as the Pollok Free State.”

Legacy and Changing Relationships with Green Space

This photograph of a protestor dressed as death holding sign that says M77 pollution kills, is featured in an article in The Evening Times (March 1995) written by the Secretary at the north Pollok community council. They write about the adverse effects on the low health of the disadvantaged areas involved and about media attempts to smear the camp as outsiders and rent-a-mob.

Helen Melone :

“I think perhaps people took their outdoor space for granted, until recently with COVID-19 and lots of lockdowns, people are really discovering their local areas and valuing them much more. I think Pollok Park is different from many other parks in Glasgow because it’s a country park and it really does feel that you are away from the city and the traffic when you’re in it.

I remember one night at the camp, there was a party on, and I walked along the pre-road surface right to the river Cart and I sat down at the edge of the bank for hours. It felt like a different planet.

Now, my favourite part of the park is Rhododendron Walk and the continuation Lime Avenue over the hill down towards Pollok House. If you go in May, the rhododendrons are flowering and they’re so beautiful and colourful. So my first connection with Pollok Park was a feeling of having something wild, feeling like it belongs to me and the second time it gave me the feeling of being away from the city.

While we didn’t stop the road, it showed what we can do when we work together. It also shows what power the press has (which we were speaking to as much as we could) so there’s many skills I have from that campaign – working with people who could be really difficult to engage with, and it was really difficult to get consensus and agreement on things. It felt like one of those forming experiences you have in your life – it might not be pleasant, there’s good and there’s bad but you come away from it and know that something has fundamentally changed in you.”

This photograph shows protestors on the Finnieston crane and the title accompanying it reads “I’ll go back to the peace camps!” – Stewart’s promise after an incident where the councillor brandished an axe at protestors in the camp. (Unknown paper or date).

Conclusion

We would like to extend a massive thank you for the generous donations from the people from the Earth First Glasgow offices and Helen Melone, for holding on to such a fascinating treasure trove of documents and cuttings over the years. And to Wallace McNeish for sharing documents and experiences from his research at the time. The protests and campaigns from Pollok Free State continue to have a legacy of community and commitment to your local environment and its people.

Keep an eye out for the next post in this series with Pollok Artists in Residence Hannah Brackston and Dan Sambo, who will share how they are drawing upon this piece of local heritage in workshops with young people in Pollok.

We are working to digitise aspects of our archive and create an online platform to browse the SGHET collections. In the meantime, if you would like to view any of the collection, for research or personal interests, or if you would like to donate anything, please do get in touch.

If this has brought up any memories of the time for you, we would love to hear from you, get in touch at info@sghet.com or via Facebook or Twitter.

By Romy Galloway

SGHET Board Member

Read the previous article: Pollok Free State and its Legacy

The post Pollok Free State: Archive Selections and Reflections appeared first on SGHET.

Battlefield Rest is an Edwardian former tramcar shelter, once considered ‘the most exotic tram shelter in Scotland’ (Battlefield Rest: About). The building has had quite a history, involving disputes over a replica tram tearoom, and current closure threats as the result of increased business rates of 400%.

The shelter was designed by Frank Burnet and Boston Architects in 1914-15, with an Art Nouveau style clock tower and exterior features, green and cream tiles, and a north gable featuring a plaque which reads ‘Let Glasgow Flourish’ (Historic Environment Scotland). The original building, B-listed since 1981, featured three sections: public toilets, a newsagents, and a waiting room. According to Historic Environment Scotland:

‘Battlefield Rest former tram shelter is the only known example of a tram shelter of this scale and design to have been built in Scotland. It was built for the Glasgow Tram Corporation, which was the largest late 19th century city tram system known in Britain. The former Battlefield Tramcar Shelter was built as the result of a design competition in 1914 for a prototype tram shelter for Glasgow Tram Corporation. It was intended that numerous tram stops would be built around the city, however, plans to build further shelters were shelved due to the outbreak of the First World War and construction was not resumed after the war. Consequently Battlefield Rest was the only one built. It was opened on 18 August 1915 and remains the only example of its type.’

Glasgow’s tramway system, established in 1872 and once the largest in Europe with 1,000 tram cars, closed in 1962 (see our forthcoming history of Glasgow’s Tramway). In 1992, Glasgow District Council Building Control ordered the derelict and damaged building to be demolished. A petition of over 1,500 signatures saved the building, and it was sold to Marco Giannasi, who began restoring it the following year (Battlefield Rest: About). Between 1994-6 (there are conflicting accounts), Battlefield Rest reopened as a restaurant. It has gone on to receive numerous awards, including many Papa Industry Awards, and is recommended by The List, and Visit Scotland.

Giannasi spent five years applying for permission to install a 1920s replica tram on the public walkway next to the building, to be used as a tearoom and performance space, in hopes that this would boost tourism in the area. He intended profits to go to local charities and good causes. It was to be a one-of-a-kind project. Giannasi said:

‘The idea started many years ago when I took over the Battlefield restaurant and restored it. We thought it would be great to have a tram and make it a feature of the area. […] We are hoping to build a replica of a 1920s Glasgow tram and I have spoken to the Tramway about the possibility of doing live shows in the afternoon or evening.’ (Evening Times 15 August 2016).

He had hoped to draw both city residents and tourists to the South Side, pointing out that:

‘Tourist maps stop at the Clyde, and the South Side has always been neglected. There are beautiful things in the area but nobody crosses the river for some reason. The tram would be an opportunity to bring tourists and people from the north of the city to the south’ (Evening Times 15 August 2016).

He had five letters of support, and there were no public objections to the plans, but the council rejected them. According to a report by Glasgow City planners, the replica tram ‘would obscure the frontage of the category B-listed building, in a way that would not have been the case with the original use of the property’, when ‘trams would have only temporarily paused in front of the building before continuing their journey’ (Evening Times 21 October 2018).

In 2018, two major things happened. First, Battlefield Rest was named ‘Restaurant of the Year’ by Glasgow’s Food Awards. Second, Giannasi was faced with an increase in his business rates bill of 400%, and an annual bill hike of £27,000, due to the 2017 revaluation of non-domestic properties (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018). He is appealing the ‘unacceptable’ (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018) new bill, and has raised over 2,850 signatures (with 1,000 raised in just four days) protesting the scale of the increased rates.

Giannasi has both an online petition, as well as a paper petition in the restaurant which has gained several hundred signatures. You can sign the online petition here: https://www.change.org/p/city-assessors-ggc-fair-rates-for-battlefield-rest. According to Giannasi, the hike would be equal to ramping up the price of a cup of coffee to £10 at the restaurant (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018), and could result in the loss of 16 jobs, and the closure of the award-winning restaurant.

For now, Giannasi will pay a transitional 50% of his increased bill. The Scottish Government moved to put a temporary 12.5% cap on rises in rates payable, and are in the process of implementing a series of recommendations to reform the business rates system (Glasgow Herald 21 March 2018). The appeal case continues to be delayed, and the local rates assessors have been vague, Giannasi claims, about the logic behind the sharp rate increase. The campaign continues.

Giannasi has joined a group of restaurants faced with massively increased business rates, who are planning to propose rates system reforms to the Finance Minister. In 2019, Battlefield Rest won the Glasgow Retail Business Awards for the second year running, and continues to be a local landmark, worth visiting for both its heritage value, and its delicious food.

By Saskia McCracken

Sources

1. http://battlefieldrest.co.uk/about
2. http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB32361
3. https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/14682334.tram-to-be-used-as-tearoom-in-south-side-restaurant/
4. https://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/16997742.tramcar-tearoom-plans-for-glasgows-south-side-derailed-by-council-bosses/
5. https://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/16098391.restaurant-protest-against-400-rates-bill-hike-backed-by-hundreds-of-customers/
6. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/battle-save-battlefield-rest
7. https://www.glasgowsouthandeastwoodextra.co.uk/news/business/battlefield-rest-scoops-top-award-1-4787482
8. http://www.scotcities.com/cathcart/langside.htm
9. https://www.change.org/p/city-assessors-ggc-fair-rates-for-battlefield-rest

The post BATTLEFIELD REST appeared first on SGHET.

Mary Barbour, based in Govan, is most famous for leading what was known as Mrs. Barbour’s Army in the Glasgow Rent Strikes of 1915.

She was born and raised in Renfrewshire, the third of seven children, to carpet weaver parents. She worked as a thread twister until she married David Barbour and moved to Govan, where he worked as an engineer in the Fairfield shipyards. She became active in local South Glasgow movements, including Kinning Park Co-operative Guild, the first of its kind in Scotland, and the Socialist Sunday Movement, and joined the Independent Labour Party.

In 1914, at the beginning of the First World War, thousands of people moved to Glasgow to work in the shipyards and munitions factories. Local landlords saw this new demand for housing as an opportunity to raise rents, despite the fact that women – in the newly formed Glasgow Women’s Housing Associations – were already campaigning against negligent landlords, who were neglecting their duties to carry out maintenance work on their properties. Mary Barbour established and led the South Govan branch of the association, and was joined by numerous housewives (she had two children herself) at meetings held in kitchens and ‘the closes’ (tenement communal hallways and stairwells) in the area. These activists united to try to prevent evictions. One woman would keep watch with a bell, and ring it whenever the bailiff came, drawing all the other women away from their work. These women threw bags of flour and other sundries at the bailiffs, and crowded together to chase them off.

Local women refused to pay the increased rent and garnered support from workers in the shipyards and factories, who threatened to strike in solidarity with those being evicted. In November 1915, one factor, Mr. Nicholson, in Partick (west Glasgow) was prosecuting 18 tenants, mostly munitions factory worker families, for refusing to pay increased rents. This was the last straw, and the city was in uproar. On the 17^th of November 1915, a crowd of roughly 20,000 women and workers from the shipyards and factories, nicknamed Mrs. Barbour’s Army, marched to Glasgow Sheriff Court and demonstrated against these prosecutions, in what the Govan Press called ‘remarkable scenes’. Helen Crawfurd, another striker, said: ‘This struggle brought great masses of women together.’

‘Headed by a band of improvised instruments, including tin whistles, hooters, and a huge drum, the procession aroused a good deal of interest. The majority carried large placards with the words: ‘Rent Strikers. We’re not Removing’.’

The court contacted munitions minister David Lloyd George (later Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government 1916-1922), who ordered the eviction cases to be dropped. The Rent Restrictions Act of 1915 was introduced less than a month later, fixing rents in the UK at their pre-war level until the war ended. As historian James Smyth puts it, the rent strike ‘may well have been the most successful example of direct action ever undertaken by the Scottish working class’.

In 1920, Barbour was elected as one of Glasgow’s first female Labour Party councillors in Govan. In her new role, she fought for the introduction of washhouses, laundries, public baths, free milk for school children, child welfare centres, play areas, pensions for mothers, home helps and municipal banks. Barbour was appointed as the first ever woman Bailie of Glasgow Corporation in 1924, and she became one of the first woman Magistrates in Glasgow. In 1925, she chaired and raised funds for the Women’s Welfare and Advisory Clinic, Glasgow’s first family planning centre, where she supported birth control, though only for married women. She was on eight committees for health and welfare services, and continually campaigned on behalf of working class people. Although she retired from the council in 1931, she continued to serve on housing, welfare, and co-operative committees. She died, aged 83, in 1958.

Barbour has not been forgotten. She features in several books about the rent strikes, and socialism in Glasgow, such as Joseph Melling’s Rent Strikes: Peoples’ Struggle for Housing in West Scotland, 1890-1916, Maggie Craig’s When The Clyde Ran Red, and James Smyth’s ‘Rents, Peace Votes: Working-class Women and Political Activity in the First World War’. A play about the rent strikes, Mrs. Barbour’s Daughters by AJ Taudevin, sold out in 2014, received rave reviews, and was hailed as ‘Magnificent … A thought provoking piece of radical history’ by The Scotsman. The Remember Mary Barbour campaign has been working for years to commemorate her life and work. Finally, on International Women’s day (the 8^th of March) in 2018, outside Govan subway station, a statue was unveiled of Barbour leading her army.

By Saskia McCracken

Sources:

Maggie Craig. When The Clyde Ran Red. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2011.

Joseph Melling. Rent Strikes: Peoples’ Struggle for Housing in West Scotland, 1890-1916. Edinburgh: Polygon Books, 1983.

James Smyth. ‘Rents, Peace Votes: Working-class Women and Political Activity in the First World War’. Out of Bounds: Women in Scottish Society 1800-1945. Eds. Esther Breitenbach, and Eleanor Gordon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1992.

http://www.pearceinstitute.org.uk/about/history/mary-barbour/

https://www.firstworldwarglasgow.co.uk/index.aspx?articleid=11384

https://sites.scran.ac.uk/redclyde/redclyde/docs/rcpeomarybarbour.htm

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43338204/statue-of-rent-strikes-campaigner-mary-barbour-unveiled

https://remembermarybarbour.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/bbc-focus-on-mary-barbour/

https://remembermarybarbour.wordpress.com/mary-barbour-rent-strike-1915/

https://www.tron.co.uk/event/mrs-barbours-daughters/

The post Mary Barbour appeared first on SGHET.