Speirs Wharf Glasgow

[fifer1947]

Best ariel view of the area I can find. In the foreground is Pinkston Power station which was a red brick building (heavily camoflague painted for WW2 which you can still clearly see in the pic) and cooling tower which was on North Canal Bank Street.

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSE00212&t=2&urltp=search.php%3Fstart%3D0%26end%3D20%26what%3D%26where%3D|port+dundas%26who%3D%26period%3D0%26collection%3D0%26search%3D99

I suspect many of the original dwellings were demolished to make way for industry like the power station or warehousing and the people rehoused in Eagle St and Borron St up to the right on the pic.

There is a pic (in another area on the canal bank) of what I think the original houses would have been like with an outside stair at the front, I'll see if I can find it again and post here.  This spur of the Forth and Clyde canal (from Maryhill to the city centre) wasn't opened until 1790 so I think many of the old houses would have been cottages for the navvies who dug and built the canal and once they moved on would have been used by millworkers at nearby mills.

[fifer1947]

Closer and closer!!

The house must have been along from mine (we never used addresses as such)  This is the Dundas Sugar Refinery which was @ no 256 and was along past the City Grain Mills http://www.scran.ac.uk/database/record.php?usi=000-000-487-932-C

There would have been an entrance/exit to Low [or Lower] Craighall Road.

[A bairn]

Thank you again fifer you've gone to an awful lot of trouble
Maureen

[fifer1947]

No trouble I enjoyed it and I know more about my 'own backyard' now!!

a) This is exactly where that address would have been, the Dundas Sugar Refinery wasn't built until 1931 look at pic 7 and compare with the next pic.

http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/172924/details/glasgow+port+dundas+52+speirs+wharf+wheatsheaf+building/

b) This earlier pic from 1910 shows what I think are houses behind the Alexander Cross & Sons works with the Glasgow Grain Mills next door - probably where your relative worked - which is exactly the same space in which the Sugar Refinery was built.

http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/virtualmitchell/image.php?i=16360&r=2&t=4&x=1

Oh yes and that is a Railway wagon they hauled grain etc - the Railway ran from there, along the canal bank past our front door on along North Canal Bank Street back to the turntable bridge at Colinton St.   I remember it from the 50's an old steam puffer and the tracks were still there until the 70s! 

[fifer1947]

Just for fun    this is our old house (demolished 1973, our family stayed there from 1905-1973 ie 4 generations) it was the Canal Harbour Masters house for Speirs Wharf and my gt grandfather Robt Cameron Kerr 1860-1936 was the last harbour master. 

http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/virtualmitchell/image.php?i=16370&r=2&t=4&x=1

[A bairn]

Thanks again fifer - really interesting pictures..My grgrandmother, born 1856, must have been familiar with your house and relatives.The info didn't say which mill she worked in but she would only have been 13 at the time.It didn't look like the family stayed there very long.Haven't traced all their movements yet but I know within 6 years they had  moved to Garscube Rd - and so the detective work continues !
Maureen

[fifer1947]

From further research I've gleaned that Speirs Wharf address had stables at the back and fronted onto Craighall Road with the Sugar refinery and Grain mill on either side.

Moved to Garscube Road eh? a well 'kent' shopping area along with Cowcaddens and the Co-op in Grove Street.  What number Garscube Road?

[Skoosh]

Many thanks for this stuff Fifer. Used to work in the Garscube Road in my younger days.

Skoosh.

[fifer1947]

Many thanks for this stuff Fifer. Used to work in the Garscube Road in my younger days.

Skoosh.

Whereabouts Skoosh?  I went to Dundas Vale Primary School (locally - or should that be colloquially - called "The Normal School") on the corner of Garscube Rd/New City Rd I think it's a teacher training facility now.  Do you remember Dallas's Department Store and the The Grand Cinema?