The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Me again...

Have searched for 3 days thru the forums but can't find anything much about the Whiteinch area where I currently live.

In particular, my new husband spent the latter part of his formative years growing up in Summerfield Cottages, which is a row of cottages running paralel to Dumbarton Road stretching from Whiteinch Cross (where the Clyde tunnel emerges) towards Clydebank.

There are 25 cottages in the row and they are approximately 100 years old, a bit older maybe.

Does anyone know anything about them at all? I believe they may have been built as accommodation for shipyard workers?

There are some more cottages along the road in Scotstoun (Harland Cottages), but the Whiteinch ones seem to be a bit better looked after.

mooshimooshisan wrote:Me again...

Have searched for 3 days thru the forums but can't find anything much about the Whiteinch area where I currently live.

You should try here for starters mooshi

http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/vm/searc ... ets_a.html

Thanks! That's what I call quick, efficient service!

Had a quick flick tho, and nearest is Summerfield Street, which is not the same one...

I am new to all this, so if there are any other obvious avenues (search engines aside), then please do point them out

multimap

I've often wondered about these cottages, being the only non industrial buildings extending down to South Street. I thought they were older than that though going by the style of them.

my grandpa lives there, and my mum grew up there. I have a book which i've given my grandpa a loan of of old scotstoun and whiteinch which explains the reason for them. (I can't quite remember th edetails , but I'll post the accurate facts when i get the book back) they were built by one of yer classic glaswegian victorian philanthropists who wanted to prove that decent and humane accomodation could be built for the working class at market prices. These were the only ones built so it was a mini experiment that didn't propogate.

Apparently the funder was the son of a chief scout, can't remeber anything else. Most folks wouldn't have known aboutthem cos there used to be a block of tenements in front on dumbarton road until the 70s. There was a wee alleyway you could cut through the close through apparently frae dumbarton road tae summerfield cottages.

they also had staggered brick walls installed in the road there during the war to dissipate bomb blasts during WWII , apparently my grandpa accidentally walked/ran into one of them trying to get home when he heard my gran was giving birth to my aunt. the tenements also suffered very badly during the great storn of 195x but i think windows came in in the tenements too...

that's all the folklore I can remember..

Brian

i meant the windows came in on the cottages too... ooops


i also found (i can't remember wher, i think it might have been glasgowstory.com) a luftwaffe map with industrial areas along the clyde marked out in red pen for destruction, and there was a yard right behind those cottages targeted by the german airforce, thankfully they didn't hit it otherwise they would've got my gran and my aunt; before my mum was born in a quantum leap/back to the future kinda way, leaving me well ... not existing...

onyways, that's my tuppence worth

tot zo

Might be somethin on this site

http://www.outreach.btinternet.co.uk/family/whiteinch/index.htm

Thanks for that link - not only did it have the explanation of the houses, but also a nice picture of the mother in law's house and husband's car!

I've always been curious about this line of strange stone structures outside Summerfield Cottages. There are about half a dozen or so, and they all seem to have what looks like an aircraft runway light on the horizontal slab.

Twitter suggests they might have been mooring points for barrage balloons during the war... does anyone know if that's true?

Found it... it's art, luvvys! A millennium project celebrating Whiteinch Cross.

Ground level lights on the landscaped area on the opposite side of the side street also hint at the area's maritime past, with the lights showing red if you approach from one direction and green from the other.

http://dixon.scot/whiteinch/whiteinch-cross.htm

the type of ART I detest.designed for dogs to pee on and for humans to trip over.

It is difficult to see how PCC can be seen as art only 29yrs after its placement, at least the Roman Empire waited a few centuries before proclamation their PCC as art and rightly so.
I do find that modern day planners lack vision and are heavily steered by councillors!

Suggest the wee dugs keep using it as a latrine!

As a resident of this part of the city, the new 'cross' went up with the waterfall and light and was on and off more than a whores knickers. There was a seating area of polished granite which the local and visiting youths of the area destroyed almost instantly and the fancy wee illuminations hardly ever worked. Locally, the whole thing was considered as a white elephant and everyone involved denied responsibility. Today the thing stands as an eyesore on a corner of Whiteinch would could have been better utilised.

Some of the suggestions to replace it were rather entertaining and unique sadly because of the way society is today, it's perhaps best that I don't repeat some of the suggestions here but one included making the small area a brothel for visiting seafarers, due to the nearby Stella Maris social club.... It might have got more visitors than the current eyesore!