A Quick Note

February 16, 2013

A quick note to say that I’m continuing to add photographs and descriptions to the current Chapters while I’m working on new ones. I’m also endeavouring to reply to as many of your comments as possible. Thank you for visiting and for your interest in Glasgow history.

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Trongate

April 9, 2012

The Trongate was originally known as St. Thenew’s Gait because it was the way to St. Thenew’s Chapel, named after the mother of St. Mungo, and situated where St. Enoch Square is today. It should be noted that the term “gait”, also spelled “gate”, does not refer to a gated entry but is instead an […]

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Renfield Street

November 19, 2011

It was Archibald Campbell of Blythswood who gave Renfield Street its name. He used to own the land on which it stands and named the street after his estate of Renfield, near Renfrew. He was also responsible for the naming of Renfrew Street in Glasgow. Most of Renfield Street is sloped and because of this […]

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Film – Clyde Shipping 1938

August 14, 2011

Here is a film of shipping activity on the River Clyde in 1938. There are scenes of excursion steamers heading “Doon the Watter” and into the Firth, the launch of a new vessel, a ship being coaled, cargo being loaded by the giant Stobcross crane and a passenger liner leaving for Canada. A Scottish Films […]

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Film – Glasgow Belongs to Me.

August 6, 2011

An inebriated Englishman has just got off the train at St. Enoch Station and is asking a cabbie to show him around the city. Naturally, the cabbie is happy to oblige and the visitor gets to see Glasgow first hand. The song “I Belong to Glasgow” made its composer Will Fyffe famous. A native of […]

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Glasgow Cross

March 12, 2011

In its earliest days, Glasgow was a small fishing village by a shallow and easily forded River Clyde and it remained this way until the Sixth Century AD when Saint Mungo founded a religious settlement by the Molendinar Burn on the hill to the north. A monastery was built and as the settlement grew, it […]

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Sailing Down the Clyde: “Doon the Watter”

July 18, 2010

From the Broomielaw Wharves on the north bank or from Clyde Place Quay on the south bank, we begin our journey down the River Clyde, or “Doon the Watter”, as Glasgow folk would say. This will be a journey through an industrial empire, past shipyards famous for building many of the world’s greatest ships and […]

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Buchanan Street

May 22, 2010

Buchanan Street was named after Andrew Buchanan, a Tobacco Lord, who envisioned that Glasgow would spread westward. With this in mind, on the 15th of February, 1763, he acquired the first portion of “five acres or thereby of ground in the Burgh of Glasgow, in the part called Palezeon’s Croft, on the North side of […]

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Broomielaw

April 7, 2010

Named after the Brumelaw Croft, a stretch of land running along the north bank of the Clyde, the street known as the Broomielaw extends from Jamaica Bridge to Finnieston Quay. It was Glasgow merchant Walter Gibson, “the father of the trade of all the west coasts”, who financed the building of Glasgow’s first quay, at […]

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St. Enoch Square

March 28, 2010

St. Enoch Square is actually sacred ground. It is the site of the chapel and last resting place of St. Thenew, the mother of St. Kentigern, also known as St. Mungo, the Patron Saint of Glasgow. The name Enoch is considered to be a corruption of Thenew. Since consecration, the land has been venerated and […]

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