A Street Under Argyle Street

[conor lingus]

Ok thanx. Ive obviously asked a question thats been more than covered before :).

[Dexter St. Clair]

http://www.grahamston.com/

for being nice about it.

[dazza]

http://www.grahamston.com/

for being nice about it.

I included that link in my reply, darling.

[Mori]

I'm Absolutely Amazed that a whole village was demolished to make way for the Central Station.

Glasgow's Forgotten Village

[Anorak]

Another urban myth!!

There was no village demolished to make way for Central Station.
Grahamston had been razed a long time before the 1870’s.

Here’s a map from 1783 showing Grahamston.



It appears as a small settlement to the west of the expanding city of Glasgow.
Buchanan Street is the only recognisable city centre street in the vicinity.


By the 1850’s, some 20 years before the development of Central Station, the situation is much different.



By this time Grahamston had long gone, been replaced by the city centre blocks bounded by Argyle Street, Hope Street, Gordon Street and Union Street.
You can even see the street under Central Station, Alston Street!


By the 1890’s the last part of the former site of Grahamston was ready for redevelopment for the expansion of Central Station.



I prepared this map for entirely different thread, showing the development of Glasgow Railway Termini.
It shows the buildings soon to be demolished for the station extension.
Looks like typical Victorian block to me with the street layout of the surviving buildings being much the same as they were in the 1850’s map.

The maps clearly show that the little village of Grahamston was not demolished to make way for Central Station, there was in fact a City Centre street on the site.

I wouldn’t rely on any of the information from the Grahamston Story publication to answer the original query

[Ronnie]

As the editorial consultant (ooh! fancy!!) on The Grahamston Story, I suppose I should reply. Grahamston grew up alongside Glasgow, and developed into a stone-built suburb, an "urban village" if you like. Just because it wasn't a few thatched cottages doesn't mean it wasn't a village. Alston Street was at the same level as Hope Street and Union Street, so it's not "under" Central Station. It's true that it was below the level of the tracks at the southern end, but it was the same height above sea level as Gordon Street, which is not "under" anything. The photograph on the back page of The Grahamston Story clearly shows buildings being demolished to make way for the construction of the station.

I wouldn’t rely on any of the information from the Grahamston Story publication to answer the original query

OK, which of the sources of the book are questionable, which of the conclusions are unsupported, and which historical sources are you using to condemn the book?

[Anorak]

If there is any evidence that any of the buildings shown in the 1780’s map of the village of Grahamston also appear in the 1850’s map of the same area in Central Glasgow, I’m surprised that you haven’t shown it.
That would have shut me up and left me satisfied that I was wrong!

I would have regarded any subsequent development in the area as urban encroachment, rather than the village expanding to take in office blocks, warehouses and pubs. Which dictionary did you use for your definition of “village”?

Photographs of the buildings being demolished in the 1870’s to make way for the construction of the station tell us absolutely nothing about the old Grahamston village.
The contemporary maps, backed up by old Post Office Directories and Valuation Rolls will show exactly what was demolished in the affected streets while Central Station was being developed.
I’m always willing to be proved wrong, it happens regularly.

Here is a quote from the Grahamston Story website:
“The area taken up by the station covered the eastern and middle portions of the Grahamston site but the western side of the village, including St Columba’s Church, remained intact until the turn of the century, when the remainder of the village was demolished to make way for a station extension.”
Have a look at the 1890’s map of the area referred to in the quote. Where exactly is “the remainder of the village” ?

[Mori]

Oh my... what have i started, maybe this thread should be renamed as
Chronicles of Grahamston or something along that line.

[Lucky Poet]

I had a nosey and found this from 1822:


(It came from <here>.)

While the blank spaces don't necessarily mean there was nothing there, it suggests the area was a building site, or about to be one. It's curious that Hope Street isn't shown though, only a vague line...

[Anorak]

Brilliant find , Lucky Poet!

The whole premise of the Grahamston Story is very doubtful to say the least.
Does anyone really believe that a city centre village existing at the end of the 18th century was still in place at the end of the 19th century when the demolition squads moved in to make way for Central Station?

It’s easier to believe in streets under Argyle Street, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy!!

[Anorak]

Had a closer look the 1820’s map posted by Lucky Poet.
Are we to believe that the development of the city streets is rather different around Union Street and Alston Street because it is part of Ronnie’s “urban village” and the rest is just Glasgow city centre?
Looks very much like the development of the city centre, a small part of which was on the site of a flattened old settlement once known as Grahamston.

If I was to a walk along Gordon Street from Borders bookshop to Central station with my 1850’s map, I’d be leaving Glasgow behind and entering some mythical village?

[Lucky Poet]

I'll sound a note of caution over that 1820s map, in that maps of that era often showed intentions rather than reality. The detail's not as fine as it could be either, and I'm still bothered by that ambiguous line where Hope Street should be...

In the interests of balance, or to be a dick depending on your point of view, according to the 1783 map Grahamston lay along an already-defined Argyle Street, and what looks like field boundaries ran off to the north at similar angles to the later street layout; so do many of the indicated buildings. It doesn't say what these buildings were like - they might have been thatched cottages for all I know, but if they were more substantial it could well be that much of the older settlement was absorbed into the city as it moved west, rather than obliterated, with the individual buildings replaced later on as wealth grew and tastes changed. Calling it a village is maybe a bit of artistic license?

[Anorak]

Lucky Poet,

You are much too kind!

[Anorak]

I worked alongside Mr Glasgow, Jack House, way back in the 1960’s when I was a copy boy for the Evening Times.

I was pleasantly shocked to find this quote in the Grahamston Story website:

“Mr Glasgow himself, the late Jack House, declared that the existence of Grahamston was 'a load of old cobblers'. Cobbles maybe, but not cobblers, as Gorbals-born author Norrie Gilliland has discovered in a painstakingly researched book about the village that time, and Glaswegians, forgot.'
Brian Swanson, The Daily Express
November 2002”

I think that, as would be expected, Jack got it right !!!!

[Mori]

Hmmm... maybe a figment of someones imagination then?