The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Down near Balloch I seem to recall radium being found from some chemical works that existed around 1920.

Book Motor Trials and Tribulations re Scottish Motor vehicle manufacture I bought at the transport museum. Page 84 has a picture of "The Galloway Engineering Works Tongland" The roof top tennis court is clearly visible in the pic as is the impressive entrance gates.

Just north of Drumchapel! See Roman marker stone found near Drumchapel and in the Huntarian museum. Plus of course
the Bearsden Roman Bath house with latrines!

Where the ASDA in Summerston is now. About their was the location of the Garscube Colliery. The last working colliery in north Glasgow within the city limits. It closed in 1966. Cardowan I consider as east Glasgow. Garscube Colliery waste bing burnt for years. I recall it burning even when the coal ...

There was big problems when they redeveloped the Dawsholm Gasworks site. However there are other sites that were old refuse dumps with pre 1900 hospital waste etc. A friend used to dig old bottles and broken crockery out of bit of waste ground near Lethamhill Golf Course. He thought it was a pre 190...

I recall power stations dumping fly ash. Yoker used to dump fly ash in various parts of the Drumchapel area in the 1940s and Singers dumped foundry waste at the Kilbowie Round a bout at the same time. Beardmores used to "rail" their foundry waste etc to Braidbar Quarries at Giffnock. Used ...

I am also aware of pit shafts being "sealed" by putting railway sleepers over the top of them. Also old cut trees and wood being thrown in until they jammed and some earth thrown on top. In the Drumchapel area when I was a lad the shafts had wooden fencing round them. One or two had rotten...

The Crusader Avenue pit shaft was nearly 800 feet deep. It had an upcast and down cast ie two shafts with about 20 feet between each shaft. The were actually mining around 500 feet but the pit had been extended unknown to the coal authority to tap a coal seam -coking coal- at 800 feet. This seam had...

The Hillhead area of Glasgow is another area affected by mining subsidence. I knew the Sikeside area pretty well back in the mid 1970's and that whole area is subject to subsidence due to mining. The Coal Authority can tell you if your house has been mined underneath. The Curfew Road collapse was th...

Surprisingly the Drumchapel/ Clydebank and North Knightswood areas have had recent pit shaft cave ins. Drumchapl 1992 a drilling rig fell in a large hole at the top of Achamore Road. Then 2004 house in Drumchapel Gardens had to be abandoned as a shaft opened up at the side of the house. Then Briar R...

Annie Millers. Once ventured in with two English friends. I think one of them "chose it"!Quick pint then out sharpish.

The PE teachers were ex army guys. So many press-ups. Then climbing ropes. It was brutal and quite a few tubby lads were hopeless. Then for four weeks we got a nice young lady, really pretty the guys were all in love until-she was better at football, better at press ups better at everything and then...

My brother was on call at the Royal and they used to go the Royal Bar and someone had a pager thing so if they were needed they could go back. That was way back nearly 50 years ago. There was another pub near/ or in Glebe Street but it was out of range of the pager "thing" and occasionally...

Aye forgot about RE or Religious Instruction. We were "supposed" to have one period a week but in secondary it was usually taken by an English teacher and you learnt English! Yes I recall doing rugby instead of PE-last period on a Monday-in first year. PE teacher fixed up a game against a ...

Night soil and manure in the 19th century was loaded on to canal barges and moved to the outskirts of Glasgow where farmers spread it on fields. One side effect was this foul muck had a nasty habit of running into "drip" or other wells. Thus spreading typhoid etc. A lot of waste was dumped...