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Garngadhill
264 Garngadhill was where most of the early McMonagle's to
Scotland dwelled. Garngad, Springburn and Blochairn at the turn
of the century were thriving industrial areas and this drew
workers from all over Britain and Ireland. Garngad became a
second home for many Irish immigrants and they moved here in
their hundreds, creating their own communities. Garngad "folk"
were often easily identified by their slightly posh Glasgow
accent, where they would say "hanz" instead of "hauns" and "goin"
instead of "gawn". This is thought to have stemmed from the many
different accents heard in the area at that time.
Garngad is now called Royston but for the sake of historical
sentimentality I will refer to it as the Garngad. Here are some
snippets of information gathered on Garngad.........
- Roman geologists spoke of an island sticking out of the
Clyde estuary above their own settlement at "old grey rock"
now the necropolis. This island was Garngaghill
- An act of parliament in 1792 cut a new road eastwards
and started to develop this area taking the name from the
Gad burn which ran through it, and Garn meaning rough
ground. The gad burn rose from a spring in High Balornock
and descended through Barnhill, Petershill and Garngad
before joining the Mollindiner Burn at Alexander Parade,
travelling through steelworks, railway yards and areas of
high pollution and poverty. The burns journey from spring,
seaward, was never going to be the cleanest, picking up all
sorts of strange colours and odours along the way and was
described by locals in the beautifully scripted Glaswegian
intellectual wit as "The Turdy Ocean". If you don't
understand that, ask a Glaswegian.
- In 1816 James Turner, a well known radical and tobacco
businessman gave permission for his land to the North of
Garngad Road to be used for a weavers mass rally to protest
against the corn laws. An estimated forty thousand people
attended, some of whom were government spies and the six
most outspoken weavers were arrested, with Villiers, Bright
and Cobden being deported to Australia and Hardie, Baird and
Wilson taken to Stirling Castle and hanged. Hardie and
Baird's bodies were eventually brought back to Glasgow where
with public donations memorials were built in Sighthill
Cemetery. A further monument was placed at the bottom of
Turner Street, but this sadly has now been removed. To this
day these street names still exist in the Garngad.
- In 1829 Baillie John Alston bought the land to the South
of Garngadhill, which had beautiful gardens and orchards and
built his home and gardeners cottage there. (Approx. 236
Garngadhill) He called this Rosemount Estate. As treasurer
of the Blind Asylum in Castle Street he was responsible for
the building of a printing press using Roman Capitals in
relief type to produce literature for the blind. Part of
this building is still standing. (Right in front of you as
you exit the motorway on Castle Street.) At 116 Garngadhill
was another asylum which opened in 1823 and was extended
1827. (Speaks volumes on Glasgow's mental health) Being mad
was a costly affair at this time and only the middle-class
could afford asylum care. The working class Loony had to
make do with the poor house.
- Being just outside the city centre, the area became a
favoured location for the wealthy where they built their
cottages and grand estates. These may be long gone but their
memory lives on in many street names..........
Sandmill House and Lands (Sandmill Street)
Dunnolly Cottages and Lands (Dunnolly Street)
The Rev. Cruikshanks Cloverbank Cottage at 326 Garngadhill (Cloverbank
Street)
Millburn House & Lands, ran from Garngadhill to Alexandera
Parade (Millburn Street)
Bellevue Cottage at 236 Garngadhill (Bellevue Place)
- Around 1800 heavy industry had begun to move into the
area with a wide variety of operations and processes. The
Iron and Steel Company at Blochairn was one of the biggest
and housed eight furnaces. Four fifty ton, six forty ton and
six twenty-five ton, with an output capacity of over two
hundred and fifty thousand tons. Other Iron companies
included, The Glasgow Malleable Iron Works, which included a
limekiln Iron foundry, and an Iron pipe foundry. Like later
iron and steel producing companies in the West of Scotland,
these pipes were exported around the world and regarded as
the finest quality available.
- From Castle Street to Turner Street there were three
clothing mills, two cotton and a flax, with the later
surviving to the nineteen-twenties.
- The St.Rollox Chemical Works owned by Charles Tennent of
the Glenconner Estate (Charles Street and Glenconner Park)
played a big part in educating children by building a work
school on a site next to the canal and lime bog in 1799
which he bought for £615 19s 9d.
- The Chemical Works processes caused extensive pollution
and in 1842 a chimney, some four hundred and thirty-five and
a half feet tall, was built to lift the smoke clear away
from the factory floor. The highest in Britain at the time
it was known as Tennent's Stack. It was many years later
before the city fathers finally got their way and on the
tenth of April nineteen twenty two it was demolished. Sadly
fourteen people were killed when explosives ignited
prematurely. The waste from this plant was dumped at a site
near Pinkston Road and to this day if the weather is
extremely hot or wet, the smell still filters through the
ground to attack your nostrils. Just off Pinkston Road at
North Canalbank Street lies Port Dundas Distillery where, at
a mere two hundred and thirty feet, its chimney can be seen
from almost anywhere in Greater Glasgow area. Imagine then
how visible Tennent's Stack must have been.
- The Tharsis Sulphur and Copper works were also owned by
Tennent and stood between Garngad Road and Garngadhill and
was famous for the pile of Blue Stuff which lay behind its
boundary walls. This was the only one of its type in
Scotland and extracted sulphur and copper from burnt ore.
- The Caledonian Railway Company or the "Caly"as it was
known locally covered a large site and was a major employer
in the area. At its peak it employed Three thousand one
hundred and thirty people over a twenty-four acre site,
thirteen of which was undercover. It produced fifty-two
locomotives, one hundred and four new carriages and three
thousand wagons per year.
- Other employers included, the Gasworks, beyond Germiston
Park. A sand quarry (Millburn Street), bottle manufacturers
(Bottom of Garngadhill), Gartcraig Fire Clay Company which
produced clay pipes and had its own outlet store at 36
Garngadhill selling a range of wonderfully decorated smoking
implements. Cowiesons Coachbuilders, The Caledonian Pottery
(43 Garngadhill), Melvine Motors, who used to test their
outboard motors in a small burn that ran past their workshop
and a Brickyard, which produced bricks with GARNGAD embossed
on them. So if you find any hold on to them they're
collectors items.
- The Monkland Canal was built in 1793 to bring coal from
the Monkland Coalfields to the expanding industries in
Glasgow. This helped to keep the price of coal down as it
could be retrieved and delivered in a relatively short space
of time. The Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway played a major
role in the death of the canal as it was much quicker and
was supported and partly paid for by Charles Tennent who had
a vested interest in getting coal to his factories in
Garngad cheaper and quicker. 1831 saw the completion of the
railway link and its journey took it through many steep
embankments and deep cuttings. The Germiston embankment was
three quarters of a mile long and forty-five foot high in
some places and rumoured to contain a half a million cubic
yards of earth. The embankment is punctured by a hole known
to locals as the blind tunnel. With the railway came
prosperity, small businesses and people; and for the people
tenement houses. (from the Latin, tenementums; meaning
holding) The Garngad as we know it today was beginning to
take shape.
- During WW2 the Steamie, just off Garngad Road was turned
into the Air-Raid Wardens HQ, where they were taught to
shout "Get that light out there" but being Glasgow the usual
response to that was "If ah come doon there, I'll pit yoor
lights oot". The Caly had watchtowers built on its grounds
and barrage balloons flew over Glenconner Park. Even the
white trams were removed as they were easily spotted from
the air. An incendiary bomb hit Earlston Avenue and the road
was full of holes.
- In 1942, during the height of the war Garngad was
changed to Royston There were at one point six churches in
the Garngad area.
| Townhead Parish Church |
1865, often mistaken for
Glasgow Cathedral |
| United Presbyterian Church |
1863 at 15 Turner Street |
| Townhead Parish Terrestrial
Mission Hall |
Cobden Street |
| United Free Church |
Corner of Blochairn Road /
Garngad Road |
| Tharsis Street Church |
1870 |
| St. Roch's RC Church |
1907, corner of Dunnolly
Street |
- One of the Parish Halls had the most terrifying bouncers
you will ever meet, PRIESTS. The hall had a strict no
Protestants rule and often at the front door you would be
asked to recite a Hail Mary, our father or glory be. Failure
meant no entry and the "you must be one of them" look.
 It is said
Father Lawton made Garngad and Garngad made Father Lawton.
Garngad was awash with talented people, all they needed was
direction and a leader and they found that in Father Edward
Lawton. A great motivator he believed that a healthy body
created a healthy mind and so began his work with the
children. He turned a small plot off Millburn Street into a
football pitch, opened a social centre, club and dance hall.
In 1926 he bought a piece of land at Provenmill and created
St.Roch's Junior Football club, he believed that the boy's
guild team needed a stepladder to senior football. He talked
big names in showbiz into doing charity shows for him with
the sole purpose of getting St.Roch's on the map. He even
managed to secure the services of the Prince of Wales to
officially open the church hall in 1933. A familiar site,
with his shillelagh under his arm, tapping mischievous boys
on the shoulder or knocking their heads together. He
convinced schoolteachers to involve the kids in plays and
after school classes. His service to the church and charity
work won him promotion to Canon. During his time at
St.Roch's he performed the wedding ceremonies of Daniel
McMonagle/Mary McGhee, John James McMonagle/Sarah Ann Gray
and Bridget McMonagle/Patrick Malone.
- He only ever lost one battle in his life and it hurt
him, the changing of the name from Garngad to Royston.
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