Clydebank Blitz - when Hyndland was also bombed

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Clydebank Blitz - when Hyndland was also bombed

Postby deebers » Tue Sep 07, 2004 9:13 pm

http://www.hyndl.demon.co.uk/hyndland/dact/7landmine.htm

I found this via various links from this website and March 13th, 1941 (during the Clydebank Blitz) is a time I'm particularly interested in.

I'm originally from Hyndland and I lived at the foot of Turnberry Road up until a couple of years ago. I've always known a bomb devastated 30% of the tenements on Dudley Drive (you can see where the newer ones, although similar in appearance, have been built to fill the gaping hole from the destruction of the old ones), but I've never been able to find anything about this. I found this remarkable site (see above) last night and was quite shocked that quite a lot of housing in that area was ruined. Almost 100 people were killed there that evening.

This is what Dudley Drive looked like before it was bombed:

Image

and this is what the replacement tenements looked like:

Image

and this area at Hyndland Road, just before the shops, appears to have been another area devastated:

Image

(there are horrible 60s/70s style flats in their place now).


In this image you can make out where an entire row of houses where 50 people were killed is here in Peel Street once was (next to West of Scotland Cricket Ground):

Image

Can anyone point me in the direction of pictures taken in this area directly after the Blitz?
Last edited by deebers on Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Ronnie » Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:01 pm

Hi
You could try Ann Laird's recent book on Hyndland. Or the newspapers of the time. The Mitchell Library collection of photographs may have pictures, as might Scran -

http://www.scran.ac.uk

or the Virtual Mitchell -

http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/cgi-bin/vm/main.plx

Peel Street might be in the two pictorial histories of Partick published by Richard Stenlake, and written by Bill Spaulding -

http://www.stenlake.co.uk/books/glas.htm

Google is also a great resource for finding local and family history material, if you can construct a good search query that minimises the chaff.

Hope this helps.
Best, Ronnie
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Postby deebers » Tue Sep 07, 2004 10:23 pm

Thanks Ronnie,

That Scran website looks interesting! :wink:
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Re: Clydebank Blitz - when Hyndland was also bombed

Postby red_kola » Wed Sep 08, 2004 9:39 am

deebers wrote:
and this area at Hyndland Road, just before the shops, appears to have been another area devastated:

Image



[edit] Wrong Street. Whoops! I guess my point was that not all gap sites were originally tenements, even though they may look like they must have been. I'm not sure about this site on Hyndland Road, however. Will try to find out...[/edit]

I think the gap sites at either end of Lauderdale Gardens (the modern shops/flats at Clarence Drive and Novar Park at the other end) always were gap sites. The Hyndland Plan was never quite completed as originally envisaged; some of the flats (Airlie Street, Dudley Drive) were built smaller (1/2 Bedroom) than planned; some streets didn't get their central boulevards. Anything not built before 1910 was never finished as a change in the law virtually eradicated the prospective building of tenements.
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Postby caine » Wed Sep 08, 2004 10:08 am

my family lived in the flats on dudley drive before and after the war. i'll see if any of them can remeber anything (although i wouldnt count on it...) for you.
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Postby deebers » Wed Sep 08, 2004 1:13 pm

red_kola - I'm pretty sure it is part of Hyndland Road. I could be wrong - but I was looking at the gap between the old tenements and the newer grey flats a few days ago. You can still see the indents from the fireplaces at the end of the old tenements.

I'll try to get a photo this weekend...

Caine - that would be very interesting... thank you!
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Postby deebers » Wed Sep 08, 2004 5:55 pm

I think the gap sites at either end of Lauderdale Gardens (the modern shops/flats at Clarence Drive and Novar Park at the other end) always were gap sites. The Hyndland Plan was never quite completed as originally envisaged; some of the flats (Airlie Street, Dudley Drive) were built smaller (1/2 Bedroom) than planned; some streets didn't get their central boulevards. Anything not built before 1910 was never finished as a change in the law virtually eradicated the prospective building of tenements.


That's quite interesting. The tenements at the foot of Turnberry Road (where I am from) are smaller - compared to the larger flats in Hayburn Crescent and Falkland Street etc.

In the close I'm from (at the blonde sandstone tenements at the foot of the road), there is one two-floored flat which takes up the ground floor and basement; two flats with two bedrooms; and two with one bedroom. Needless to say, the one bedroom flats are now selling for over £140,000 now - jeez - who'd have thought they are worth it! The flats in Dudley Drive are quite small too. I notice they all have tiny bathrooms - were they maybe added in later?

Also does anyone know if Broomhill Park was also a bomb site? It has a rather peculiar wall halfway through it?
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Postby Ronnie » Wed Sep 08, 2004 8:20 pm

The end walls of tenements with fireplaces in them are no sure indication of bomb damage, subsidence or other disasters. The building regulations in Glasgow insisted that the people building less than a full block had to leave the end unfinished, with fireplaces and chimney flues, so that whoever completed the block could join on seamlessly ... otherwise you'd have two "ends" butting each other half-way along a block.
You can check this by looking at a block that's obviously been built in different styles ... there is no gap between them, or a double layer of chimneys.

There's not many people know that :wink:

Also, I was in the Mitchell this afternoon and checked:

Ann Laird, "Hyndland" (Glasgow: Ann Laird, 1997) has the details of all the "Clydebank Blitz" bombs that landed on the West End on 13 March 1941, on pages 72-73. This includes a photo from the Daily Record of 2 August 1941 of the damage to one tenement.

Censors permitting, the Daily Record or other newspapers for 14 March 1941 would probably have a report with pictures.

Hope that's of use.
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Postby DMcNay » Wed Sep 08, 2004 8:53 pm

Ronnie wrote:
Censors permitting, the Daily Record or other newspapers for 14 March 1941 would probably have a report with pictures.

Hope that's of use.


Having a wee look at my "FRont Page Scotland" book shows the front covers for 14th and 15th March 1941. Reporting a hospital being hit, and the fires quickly controlled. No mention of which hospital (careless talk costs lives, don't you know) and no pictures. Mentions "in the same town a block of dwelling houses was hit, the casualties including a member of the family of a doctor who was attending the injured."

The report of the 15th has a picture of a woman brewing some tea. Implying that even though her house has been bombed around her, she still remains cheerful. Mentions Clydebank having a "second night" which was more intense than the first.

Again, no specific locations. Mentions a "rural district".

I would be surprised if you get photos from papers of the time. They would have tried to minimise the amount of damage.
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Postby DMcNay » Wed Sep 08, 2004 8:58 pm

Just noticed it doesn't mention Clydebank at all. It mentions "Clydeside".

Here's a paragraph that might interest:

"Early incidents reported were...a hit on a tenement building in a town in the area. Extensive damage was done, and rescue squads were rushed to the spot"

No idea where, and no pics.
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Postby Schiehallion » Wed Sep 08, 2004 9:52 pm

Is it only Hyndland photos from the blitz you're looking for? I've got Scotstoun and Clydebank ones, some of which never got past the censor at the time.
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Re: Clydebank Blitz - when Hyndland was also bombed

Postby red_kola » Wed Sep 08, 2004 10:08 pm

deebers wrote:
and this area at Hyndland Road, just before the shops, appears to have been another area devastated:


OK, found a 1930 map on page 128 of "Glasgow The Forming of the City" (see the books link on the front page) which shows this bit of Hyndland Road as being a gap site, along with the two bits of Lauderdale Gardens I had confused it with and the block opposite Novar Park which now has a modern block on it too. Will scan and post tomorrow.

Cheers Ronnie for the info about the fireplaces... My own block has the indents for the firplaces of the 'next' stair and space for 16 chimney pots, although only 8 are actually used. I know that nothing was ever built on the site adjacent and had almost come to the conclusion that that something like that must have been the case.
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Postby deebers » Thu Sep 09, 2004 12:44 am

::):

:)! You guys are thorough! Thank you - I'm finding this very interesting.

And yes Schiehallion - I would be interested in hearing about the Clydebank and Scotsoun ones!

Was Glasgow the only Scottish city to be targetted successfully by the Germans?
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Postby DMcNay » Thu Sep 09, 2004 5:30 am

The day war broke out they sent one bomber to the Firth of Forth. Shot down by Spitfires from RAF Drem.

Don't know much more than that, which isn't much.
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Postby red_kola » Thu Sep 09, 2004 9:16 am

There are two great pictures at The Glasgow Story showing the Luftwaffe's own reconnaissance maps used for planning the bombings of Clydeside:

http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA00868
http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA00869

It's got a bit of background on the attacks as well:
"The first daylight raid on Glasgow was on 19 July 1940, when bombs were dropped on Govan, Partick and Scotstoun. The most severe raids on the city took place on the nights of 13-14 and 14-15 March 1941, when a fleet of almost 250 bombers assembled from airfields from Norway to France caused extensive damage and heavy casualties on Clydeside. 647 people lost their lives in Glasgow and 6,835 houses suffered serious damage. Further heavy raids followed during the spring of 1941, before the German bombers turned east to attack Russia.

The last raid on Glasgow was on the night of 23 March 1943, when the main casualty was Alexander "Greek" Thomson's Queen's Park Church, which was completely destroyed"
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