East Hills Blog

 Behind the Wills Cigarette Factory (now City:Park) on Broompark Circus  is the Our Lady of Good Counsel RC Church (Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, 1964-5).

Just before Alexandra park, you cross the now culverted Molendinar Burn (see PtoP blog for its history):

And then as you come up Coventry Drive you pass the bizarrely named Culloden St !  (though you need to remember that Glasgow was mainly Royalist!). The photo is taken looking back down Coventry Drive, most of the tenements have gone:

Alexandra Park was laid out by the City Improvement Trust 1866-1870 on 30 acres of land on Wester Kennyhill and an army of unemployed labourers was engaged to landscape the site. 

The checkpoint isnt actually at the highest point in the Park, this is about 600m further to the NE.  This 1931 aerial photo shows the highest point well - its marked by the circular wood:

Also in the park, just off the route is the Saracen fountain.

And just outside the park, on Alexandra Parade is this hall:

As you leave the park and cross Cumbernauld Road, to your left about 300m off the route is the opulent Art Deco Riddrie Vogue Cinema, built in 1938, and later converted to a bingo hall but most of its interior is still intact. One of the best Art Deco buildings in the city.

You then go up through Haghill and across Hogarth Park, seen in this photo:

In the park is this pyramid, which seems to be purely for ornamental purposes:

As you go on up and over the hill on Rigby Street, to your right used to be the Myreside Greyhound Stadium, seen in this 1932 photo:

Then, as you turn left onto Shettleston Road, you  go past the site of the Dyewood Mills Chemical works, seen in this 1950 photo, with the cross beyond.

At the cross today is this mural:

You then turn right and head up into Tollcross park, with the checkpoint on the grassy knoll at the high point.

Tollcross Park opened in 1897 on land bought by the Glasgow Corporation from the Dunlop family. . The Winter Gardens date from 1870 and were moved from their original site in Ardrossan to the park in 1898. Tollcross House  (below) was built in 1848 for James Dunlop. He was one of the owners of the Clyde Iron Works in Carmyle (1786-1978, the site is now Glasgow East Investment Park).

This aerial view also shows the large Rose Garden, with checkpoint at top left :

Below is an aerial photograph of Tollcross, Shettleston and surrounding areas of the East End taken in 1950:  (NB: you can follow the challenge route between Alexandra Park and Cranhill water tower.)

The section of London Road from Celtic Park to Auchenshuggle runs across the bottom left hand corner of the photograph, with the River Clyde winding through fields below it. Near the centre is the large expanse of Tollcross Park, just north of Tollcross Road and south of Shettleston Road.

The prominent road running across the top of the image is the busy Edinburgh Road, with Cumbernauld Road leading off diagonally from the left. The route of the Monkland Canal is clearly visible north of the Edinburgh Road, its route subsequently followed closely by the M8 Motorway. The fields in the top right corner disappeared under the post-war housing estates built at Cranhill (where work appears to be underway in this photograph) and Ruchazie:

You then go through the west part of Shettleston and up through Greenfield Park, over the A8 Edinburgh Road and on up to Cranhill Water Tower (CHECKPOINT). 

The water tower built in 1951 is unique for having a square tower, in contrast to the round ones in nearby Garthamlock.  Around its base are now a series of sculptures by Andy Scott (of Poseidon, three sirens and a mermaid) and there's a lovely little garden with a lighthouse map nearby.  Andy is better known for the Kelpies sculpture in Falkirk.

The Cranhill housing estate was built in the early 1950s, and redeveloped in the late 1990s. This photo is from the 1950s, showing the tower on the right, with the canal beyond:

The streetnames take the names of lighthouses (Bellrock, Skerryvore etc). The three 1963 tower blocks (see photo below), just by the bridge you take to cross the M8, still stand.

Famous Cranhill residents include Scotland footballer Pat Nevin, brothers Angus and Malcolm Young who were founder members of AC/DC and actor Billy Boyd who was in Lord of the Rings. 

The nearby Cranhill Park is now a protected habitat for water voles, unique in Scotland.

This photograph from 1987 shows the M8 Motorway, looking east from Gartcraig Bridge. The three multi-storey blocks in Cranhill in the background were built on what were once waste tips, forming a popular playground for children known locally as the "Sugarollie Mountains" (Sugarollie is a Glaswegian term for liquorice).

This stretch of the M8 is often referred to as the Monkland Motorway, as it was built on the bed of the Monkland Canal. This was once the most profitable canal in Scotland, carrying coal, iron, steel, timber and lime from the Coatbridge area to Glasgow, but by 1950 it had been abandoned. When the demand for a Glasgow-Edinburgh motorway became overwhelming (the first section opened in 1964), the canal provided a natural route through the east end. The canal was infilled in 1972, and this section of the M8 opened a few years later.

Having crossed the M8 you go through Ruchazie.  A now demolished house on Bankend Street became infamous when an arson attack in April 1984 killed six members of the Doyle Family.  This was part of the "Ice Cream Wars" , turf wars in the East End in the 1980s between criminal gangs who sold drugs and stolen goods from ice cream vans. 

After the Lethamhill checkpoint you go through Riddrie Cemetery and on your way up to the next checkpoint you cross the Molendinar Burn (see To the Dead blog for its history).

On your way through Springburn you pass (on Lamont Road) the RC Church of St Catherine Laboure, built in 1953.

Springburn Park, opened by Glasgow Corporation in 1892, stands on Balgrayhill which at 111m is the highest point in north Glasgow. (incidentally you can see the 4 Balgrayhill tower blocks, built in 1964 and since the demolition of Whitevale/Bluevale and Red Road, now the highest blocks in Glasgow).

The park contains the Springburn Winter Gardens, Cat A listed, built in 1900 and derelict since 1983. Now on the list of Buildings at Risk.

James Reid, a business partner of locomotive manufacturer Walter Neilson, funded its construction. There's a memorial statue of him in the park (see photo of Christine paying her respects!), and nearby there's also a column and unicorn nearby.

Also (depending on route choice!) you may pass the lovely large rockery which is to the west:

Mosesfield House, situated in the park, was also the site where George Johnston built Britain's first Motor Car in 1895, which eventually grew to become the Arrol-Johnston company.

As you descend into Springburn you pass the site of several of the old railway works.  Springburn's economic development was closely linked to heavy industry, especially railways. At its peak, it built around 25% of the world's locomotives.

There were four main railway manufacturing sites that located in Springburn; the North British Railway's (NBR) Cowlairs Works in 1841, the Caledonian Railway's St Rollox Works in 1856, Neilson & Company's Hyde Park Works in 1861 and Sharp, Stewart & Company's Atlas Works in 1888. The latter two eventually amalgamated to become part of the North British Locomotive Company (NBL) in 1903.  St Rollox is the only one still standing (see below)

Here's an 1896 map which shows the railways and the railway works in Springburn and Cowlairs:

AS you go along Keppochhill Rd towards the Cemetery, you pass this mural celebrating the Cowlairs Incline (the route from Queen St to the old Cowlairs station up which trains had to be hauled, until they became powerful enough to do the job unaided!)

The iron gates to Sighthill Cemetery,are in an ornate Greek style and made in 1839. The cemetery opened in 1840.  Perhaps the most famous people to buried at Sighthill are Andrew White, John Baird and Andrew Hardie, two of three men executed for treason for their involvement in the "Radical Rising" of 1820. They were buried in paupers' graves in Stirling, but their remains were brought back to Glasgow in 1847 and re-interred at Sighthill. Andrew White was one of nineteen others whose death sentences were commuted and were transported to Australia for their part in the abortive uprising. 

As you go down and out of the cemetery and onto Springburn Road you pass the front of what was the St Rollox Works, known locally as the Caley - after the Caledonian Railway Company which built it in 1856.  It closed in 2019. The remaining buildings are Cat B listed.  This photo is from 1954:

You then go into Roystonhill, an area which used to be called the Garngad, The 1925 photo below shows the slum housing of the time. A heavy cloud of polluted air hangs over the area, produced by the many heavy industrial works in the area, such as the St Rollox Chemical Works (which used to be on the west side of Springburn Road/Castle Street, where the new Sighthill housing estate is currently being built).  These works were at one time the largest in the world, and operated 1799 to 1964.  They were created by Scottish industrialist Charles Tennant. 

Garngad became heavily industrialised in the 19th century, with the establishment of flax and cotton mills, iron and chemical works and railway works. The tenements that were hurriedly built to house incoming workers were of poor quality, with only outside toilets, leading to overcrowding and insanitary conditions. Diseases such as tuberculosis were rife, and the Garngad slums were regarded as some of the worst in Europe.

Garngad was the scene of one of Glasgow Corporation's earliest major slum clearance programmes, beginning in 1933. Many of the residents moved to the new scheme in nearby Blackhill, and those that stayed could live in the new housing that was built.

The checkpoint is at Roystonhill spire. The spire is what remains of the Townhead-Blochairn church, built in 1866.  The rest of the church was demolished in 1997.  Stained glass windows by William Morris were saved, and are now in the Burrell Collection. In 2019 a new Roystonhill Community Hub was created from the former church hall which is adjacent.

As you descend from the checkpoint (as ever, depending on route choice!) you may pass a bridge just of Castle Street which was used by the Monklands Canal and you can still see the original walls. This photo from 1948 shows the canal and the bridge is where the canal does a right angle bend. The Chemical Works are in the centre.

And here's a 1930s photo showing the works and adjacent railway:

Coming down Castle St (dep on route choice!) up to your right is the Martyrs' School (on Parson St) , designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh being one of his first works, and opened in 1898. It ceased to be a school in 1959 and is now council offices. 

(former) Blind Asylum (Castle Street) :  Designed by William Landless in a Free Revivalist style and completed in 1881.  The Blind Asylum (founded in 1804) sought to provide education and training to blind people so that they could earn an independent living. Features a sculpture by Charles Grassby of Christ restoring a blind child's sight. Plus a hexagonal clock tower with five clocks (the sixth side was left blank because it couldnt be seen from the street). Incorporated into the nearby Royal Infirmary in 1934.  Photo taken before the clocks were added.  but has latterly been derelict?.