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Many will be familiar with the Glasgow Southside suburb of Mount Florida with its tenements and impressive terraces and, of course, the home of Scottish Football, Hampden Park. But how did this place gets its name?

 

The district grew in and around the “Lands of Mount Floridon”, which consisted of 15 acres of orchards and gardens surrounding the house of the same name. It was situated at the highest point of the present day Prospecthill Road in the Lanarkshire section of the Parish of Cathcart.

 

The earliest note of the house and lands is in a notice from September 1814 showing that there were two dwellings surrounded by 15 acres of land at Mount Floridon.

 

 

The property was shown on the map section below, part of a larger map of Lanarkshire published in John Thomson’s Atlas of Scotland, 1822 (republished 1832).

 

 

By 1844, when the property was offered for sale again, when owned by a Mrs Bell, it was described at that time as “Mount Florida”. The house appears to have been in a habitable condition until around 1855 when it was destroyed by fire. No pictures of the property survive.

 

This map from the 1860s shows Mount Florida as a ruin. It is believed that this was located where the bend of Prospecthill Road now stands and at the end of Hampden Terrace.

 

 

This view from Google maps highlights where Mount Floridon House would have been when compared to earlier maps. Today this would have sat at the end of Hampden Terrace, where May Terrace now begins.

 

 

So we can assume that Mount Florida took its name from the house and lands of Mount Floridon. But how did the name originate?

 

There are a few theories around this. 

 

One myth is that it was known as Mount Floridon because the family that lived in the property originally were from Florida in the USA. This myth was mentioned by Alexander Gartshore in his book ‘Cathcart Memories’:

 

“the nearest building from Cathcart in the direction of Glasgow was Mount Florida house which was occupied by a family from Florida USA. And it stood where the Eildon villa now stands”.

 

Another suggestion relates to the Latin derivation of the word “Florida”. This derives from the Latin Floridus meaning “flowering”. Mount Florida may have been a floral hill at some point in the past.

 

So what is the most likely origin of the name? While we can’t say for sure, it’s likely that the original house took its name from the Latin word “floridus”, but we would be interested to hear any other theories.

 

UPDATE 8/5/25: Richard Keltie on Facebook has alerted us to the below earlier reference to Mount Floridon, and supplied a newspaper clipping:

“There is an earlier mention of Mount Floridon, in The Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany for Sept 1812, which refers to the marriage on 31 Aug 1812 :
‘At Mount Floridon, David Kay, Esq. of Duntiglenan, merchant, to Mrs June Reid.’

The same intimation appeared in the Aberdeen Press and Journal on 9 Sept 1812.”

 

 

Part 2 will look in more detail at how Hampden got its name and how Mount Florida grew in the late 1800s into the suburb we know today.

 

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By Dougie McLellan

Published: 5th May 2025