Glasgow - City 1973-77

Greendyke St. at the Saltmarket. 25 March 1973

From Steel St., looking across the Saltmarket to the Bridgegate. 29 April 1973

Foot of the Saltmarket. 8 March 1973

East end of the Bridgegate. 25 March 1973

Saltmarket, east side. 25 March 1973 ~ Charles Frank was where I bought the camera, a Yashica 44 TLR, with which most of the shots in this gallery were taken, and all the ones dated '73 or '74. I think it was £12/10s or thereabouts.

Saltmarket and Steel St. 25 March 1973

Saltmarket. 25 March 1973

Saltmarket and Greendyke St. 25 March 1973

St Andrew's-by-the-Green. 25 March 1973

Glasgow Cross Station, built 1896, rebuilt 1923, closed 1964, demolished 1977. April 1973

Cross looking south. April 1973

Saltmarket and Trongate. October 1973

St Andrew’s St, north side. March 1973

St Andrew’s St, south side. March 1973

St Andrew’s Square. Laid out in 1768, this was the first of Glasgow’s squares - St Enoch’s followed in 1782 and George in 1787. The white painted building was one of the few remaining original houses, and now seems to have been replaced. The taller block has been handsomely restored, with that nightmarish lift shaft removed. October 1973

Turnbull St, St Andrew's. June 1975

Turnbull St, west side at St Andrew’s St. March 1973

Couple of random shots from the west end of the Green. April 1973

Bridgegate, north side. July 1973 ~ All new housing now, as far as the block facing the Saltmarket.

Saltmarket and Bridgegate. January 1977

Bridgegate, south side at St Margaret’s Place. March 1973

St Margaret’s Place. January 1974

Paddy’s Market. September 1973

Merchant Lane. March 1973

Goosedubbs at the Bridgegate. This one took a bit of working out - it must have been taken from a few yards east of Merchants Lane. Aird’s Lane is entering Goosedubbs from the left, and on the far right is the end of Howard St. The roof of, I think, the St Enoch locomotive shed shows above the railway arches. The tall brick structure to the right of the cars has a hand-painted sign beneath the smoke-blackened aperture: NO NEED FOR ALARM - FISH BEING CURED. The Fish Market was of course just across the road, for another few years anyway. March 1973

Clyde St. March 1973

The Fish Market, opened in 1872, moved to Blochairn in 1977, and after lying empty for some years this building had a brief and unsuccessful career as the Briggait shopping centre. January 1977

These are usually referred to as sea-horses, but this seems inadequate. They certainly have the head and shoulders of manic-looking horses, but the front feet are both webbed and clawed, while the scaly body tapers into a serpentine tail the end of which is also webbed and perhaps clawed. The roundel bears a crowned female head which has not even a passing resemblance to Victoria. The architects were Clarke and Bell, but the name of the sculptor is not known. January 1977

Stockwell St from the south. The railway bridge was removed in the summer of 1978. March 1973

Near the end for the Victoria Building at the corner of Clyde St and Stockwell St, making way for Carrick Quay. The future looked uncertain for the handsome block on the right, but happily it has survived. January 1977.

Corner of Stockwell St and Bridgegate. January 1977

Stockwell St, west side south of the Bridgegate. Next to the Old Scotia is the former Metropole Theatre. It started in 1862 as the Scotia Theatre (Stan Laurel's father was the manager in the early days), changed its name in 1897, and was gutted by fire in 1961.   November 1973

Clyde St west of Stockwell St. No.130 was more interesting than it seemed. September 1973

Rear of the warehouse at 130 Clyde St.In that year [1806] Allan Dreghorn's nephew and heir, Robert Dreghorn of Ruchill, better known as "Bob Dragon," and celebrated for his peculiarities of feature, person, and habits, took his life with his own hand within the walls of his town house. For that reason the mansion, which forms the back part of a furniture warehouse at No. 20 Great Clyde Street [later 130 Clyde St], was for many years reputed to be haunted—a sad sequel to the story of the brilliant craftsman and architect to whose genius the city owes the beauty of St. Andrew's Church.Regrettably I never made any effort to see inside the warehouse, to discover what might remain of the mansion. With the adjoining tenements it was swept away for the Carrick Quay development. May 1974

A 19th century sketch of the Dreghorn Mansion.

Stockwell St, west side south of the Trongate. Utterly changed now. The little building with the three half-dormers deserved to be better known and to meet a kinder fate, for it was the last survivor, or surviving remnant, of the comfortable town houses erected in the late 17th century by wealthy Glasgow merchants in the Bridgegate, Saltmarket, Trongate and Stockwell. Dated 1678 (say Gomme and Walker) it had the distinction of being the second oldest house in the city, after Provand’s Lordship. It spent most of the 19th century and part of the 20th as the Garrick Temperance Hotel, and as such it earned a small but honourable footnote in history as the meeting place of the Abolitionist party at a time when the abolition of slavery was a contentious issue in the city - much of Glasgow’s wealth was founded on slave labour. Latterly the building was neglected, and its last owner made repeated unsuccessful applications to have it demolished , until one night it conveniently - woops, I mean unfortunately - caught fire and was flattened a few days later. August 1973

28 Stockwell St. August 1973

Stockwell St and Argyle St. There was much building around here in the latter decades of the 18th century, unplanned but harmonious, of handsome Georgian four-storey tenements, and this corner block, its neighbour, and the one further down Argyle St were among the few that remained. They didn’t survive much longer though. October 1973

Trongate, north side east of Glassford St. The plain building next to the Royal Bank is worth noting, for it was Spreull’s Land, and had a curious origin. The previous house on the site, which had adjoined the original Hutchesons’ Hospital, belonged to Margaret Spreull, born in 1700, the daughter of John Spreull, a man of affairs better remembered as Bass John from the years he spent imprisoned on the Bass Rock, having backed the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge. Margaret, a spinster and the last of her line, wishing to perpetuate the family name bequeathed the house to her nephew James Shortridge, with an entail stipulating that if he wished to inherit he must change his name to Spreull. This he did on her death in 1784, and he immediately pulled down the old house and erected the fine building which became known as Spreull’s Land. A letting concern, as James already had a villa at Linthouse, it commanded a good rent and was for half a century one of the smartest addresses in town. October 1973

A cloud of dust is all that’s left of Spreull’s Land. August 1978

North side of the Trongate, opposite the New Wynd. The further, Italianate building survives, but not the nearer tenement of c1800. August 1973

North side of the Trongate, opposite the New Wynd. Architecture of Glasgow, by Gomme and Walker, was published in 1968 and remains the most authoritative general work on the subject, so for many years I thought that this was Spreull’s Land, as the map at the back of the book places it here. Other sources make it clear that this was a mistake. August 1973

Candleriggs from King St. July 1973

Parnie St and King St. July 1973

Parnie St east of King St. July 1973