It's all up hill from Bridgeton.

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Re: It's all up hill from Bridgeton.

Postby HollowHorn » Mon Aug 17, 2009 8:36 pm

HollowHorn wrote:
Josef wrote:Tangentially to this thread, I was struck by how early there was a recognisable Royal Infirmary in Lucky Poet's post on the Molendinar thread.

At's because it was built in 1794, in a tangentially manner of speaking, a'course.


In case any-one gets the wrong impression from the above exchange:

Glasgow Royal Infirmary was a voluntary hospital, funded by public subscription and designed by the the brothers James and Robert Adam. It was built 1792-1794 on the site of the old Bishop's Castle on Castle Street.
The building was rococo in style with a plain lower facade and a decorated level above. Beneath the impressive dome was the operating theatre, with room for up to two hundred students to observe surgeons performing operations. This area later became the Chapel.
The infirmary had only had 136 beds in 1794 but was extended greatly over the following century. It was demolished and rebuilt during the early 1900s.


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Virtual Mitchell.
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Re: It's all up hill from Bridgeton.

Postby Lucky Poet » Fri Aug 28, 2009 9:58 pm

Josef wrote:When was John Knox Street built (or named)?

Only a month late, here's this from a Scotsman article of April 1872; the paper took great interest in the Glasgow Improvements.
At the upper end of High Street, in immediate vicinity to the Cathedral, the Trustees have effected changes as important in a sanitary point of view as they are desirable with reference to the amenity of the district. From the top of the hill there straggled downwards in a south-easterly direction, a narrow and dingy street known as the “Drygate,” along the north side of which, and on the adjacent slope of the Molendinar Valley, was heaped together a cluster of wretched houses, including, under the name of the “Rookery,” a teeming nursery of vice and disease. Clearing away this mass of squalor, the Trustees are forming a new street, to be named “John Knox Street,” in honour of the great Reformer, whose monument overlooks the ground from the summit of the neighbouring Necropolis. The slope towards the Molendinar, which, through the covering in of that fœtid stream, will become coterminous with the Necropolis, is intended to be laid out as a garden or shrubbery. The process of reconstruction has here been commenced by the Trustees themselves, who have erected a number of dwelling-houses for the working classes, as also what may, we believe, be regarded as a model lodging-house. From the style of architecture adopted in the more recent of these buildings, it may be inferred that the new street when completed will present somewhat of the picturesque appearance of Cockburn Street, Edinburgh. A subsidiary effect of this clearance will be to open up a view of the Cathedral from Duke Street; and, altogether, there is perhaps no part of the Trustees’ undertaking more generally appreciated than their attempt to improve the surroundings of a building which St Mungo’s citizens cherish as one of their choicest possessions.


Following straight on from this, an interesting bit showing something of the attitudes of the powers that be:
The population ejected from the High Street and Saltmarket regions are supposed to have bestowed themselves among the poorer class of houses in the east, north, and south quarters of the city. It has not been clearly ascertained to what extent they may have improved their social condition, or how far their removal may have occasioned overcrowding in the districts to which they have migrated. One thing, however, seems to be clearly made out, and that is, that the dispersion of the dangerous class has had a material effect in diminishing their power for mischief. The police have now comparatively little trouble in a district where formerly it tasked all their energies to preserve order; and to the operations of the Trustees, among other causes, the Chief-Constable attributes a remarkable diminution of crime which has taken place in the city within the last two or three years. “Through these operations,” he says, “the city has been cleared of the foulest dens of crime and profligacy, and their occupants have been scattered amongst a population breathing a purer moral atmosphere, thereby affording facilities to the police for bringing the vicious to justice more easily and certainly than when the whole formed a concentrated and combined colony of ruffianism.”

In other words, they demolished areas of bad housing without providing any alternative accommodation for the evicted population, leaving them to find new living space as best they could in the remaining bad housing elsewhere in the city; the polis were happy though, as there was less trouble from the people who weren't there any more.
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Re: It's all up hill from Bridgeton.

Postby purplepantman » Sat Sep 05, 2009 9:23 pm

purplepantman wrote:
HollowHorn wrote:
Dexter St. Clair wrote: when was King Billy moved to the square?

The statue was presented to the city by James Macrae, of Orangefield in 1734 and erected outside the Tontine Hotel, Glasgow Cross, in 1735. It was moved to an adjacent site in 1894 due to the building of a railway station at Glasgow Cross, and then moved in 1923, to J & G Mossman's High Street yard for repairs. The tail was damaged at this time and was re-affixed (for some unknown reason) with a ball and socket joint which causes the tail to swing in the wind. A new pedestal was made and the English translation of the Latin inscription cut. The original Latin inscription was transferred onto the new pedestal. The statue was erected on its present site in 1926. Until the mid-19th century there were four canon barrels, placed muzzle upwards, at the corners of the pedestal. These were relics from the Battle of the Boyne (1690), William's greatest victory over King James VII and II. Two were sold to a scrap iron merchant in the 1850s when the council erected urinals adjacent to the ends of the pedestal. The other two were moved with the statue in 1894 and enclosed within the decorative wrought iron railings which were erected around the statue at that time. These were scrapped prior to the 1923 relocation. Unspecified repairs (costing £110) were made to the statue in 1951, as per the recommendations of a report submitted to Glasgow Corporation by the City Engineer.

That should narrow the date down a bit ::):


King Billy's statue was mentioned on page one of this thread.

Found a great picture of it on RCAHMS showing where it used to be on Argyle street...
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Also on this map from 1807...
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I'd imagine it was a bit of a "meeting place" back then, as in; "I'll get you under King Billy at half-two".



Question in relation to the above post(s);

Found this pic on Virtual Mitchell....
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c.1905(?)

Is this KB's statue? (circled) It looks like it.
It appears to have been moved from the position previously stated and is now on the other side of the street looking west. How many positions has this statue occupied? There's plenty other pics on VM showing Trongate around this time but only this one showing the statue in this position. It's obviously now up near the cathedral.
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Re: It's all up hill from Bridgeton.

Postby purplepantman » Sun Sep 06, 2009 6:14 am

HollowHorn wrote:The statue was presented to the city by James Macrae, of Orangefield in 1734 and erected outside the Tontine Hotel, Glasgow Cross, in 1735. It was moved to an adjacent site in 1894 due to the building of a railway station at Glasgow Cross


OOPS! Just read that bit again and the answer is there! :oops:
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Re: It's all up hill from Bridgeton.

Postby Josef » Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:12 am

Aye, he may be a grumpy old bastard, but he comes in handy sometimes.
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