The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Hello all,

Just finished reading Aileen Smart's 'Villages of Glasgow - South of the Clyde' and being from Shawlands (or Langside, depending on how posh you want to be), I was interested to read about the complete flattening of an area of 1870s villas around Lethington Avenue/Direleton drive.

I believe they were cleared to make way for the new 80s style flats that now occupy the site just off Tantallon Road between Langside Drive and the Bottom of Skirving Street.

Had a wee look around the virtual Mitchell and found this photgraph of 4 Lethington Avenue, July 1964.

http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/vm/image ... 20174R.jpg

Does anyone have any more photos of this area pre 1980s or any information on how these villas came to become derelict (did the developers pay people to move out?). It just seems amazing that this area was cleared because folk would be fighting each other for an 1870 villa nowadays...

Here's a couple of images (previously posted in the "Bombs over Glasgow" thread i think:

>Dirrelton and Lethington<

Top left of this pic shows the villas that stood where the abismal Shawlands Arcade now stands:
>Pollokshaws and Kilmarnock Roads<

Just a wee aside on the 'abysmal' Shawlands Shopping precinct. Last week I was in a car coming into Shawlands northwards along Pollokshaws Road. I was disoriented by what seemed at first glance to be the shopping precinct - but there I was in Pollokshaws Road (and not Kilmarnock Road where the precinct is).

Turns out what I saw in Pollokshaws Road was a strikingly similar 'mini version' of the bigger one on Kilmarnock Road. It was as though the developer thought "Oh look there's a space, let's do another crap one on a smaller scale." Same grey roughcast, front entrance ramp and steel balustrade etc.

The smaller one is just further up to the top left of the second picture posted by crusty.

That is the Pollokshaws Road entrance to the same Shawlands Arcade

Blueboy wrote:Hello all,

Just finished reading Aileen Smart's 'Villages of Glasgow - South of the Clyde' and being from Shawlands (or Langside, depending on how posh you want to be), I was interested to read about the complete flattening of an area of 1870s villas around Lethington Avenue/Direleton drive.

Had a wee look around the virtual Mitchell and found this photgraph of 4 Lethington Avenue, July 1964.

Here's a rough idea of how the area around Camphill looked c.1892 Fairly typical victorian garden suburb for those that could afford it.
Is there anything left standing from that period....Crusty?

(*Large image)

All that survives are the two terraces (roughly centre of the map) and a couple of villas at the Bon Secours on Mansion House Rd... thats about it tho! Doesnt even seem as though the feu's survive.

http://www.bestlaidschemes.com/moviezone/glasgow-1980

It boasts somewhere in this (I think) about using the land previously used by villas for new council housing.

Yep Pollokshields was earmarked by GCC to go the same way. Which is why the deck access flats in St Andrews Drive were built. Sadly they replaced some of the earliest and most interesting villas in the UK's first garden suburb. Several Greek Thomson villas and Boucher and Cousland's very own swiss cottage semi were sacrificed for this. Would have added a lot of value to Glasgow's domestic architectural heritage as so many Greek Thomson villas in one place would have made it our equivalent of Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park houses in Chicago.

crusty_bint wrote:Top left of this pic shows the villas that stood where the abismal Shawlands Arcade now stands:
>Pollokshaws and Kilmarnock Roads<

Here are the tenements that once stood on Kilmarnock Road before it was cleared for Shawlands Arcade...



And here are those tenements being demolished...

Yep Pollokshields was earmarked by GCC to go the same way.

Suppose it was just payback in a way, I suppose it would be like Bearsden or something now had they all remained.

Hello
I'm new to this forum.

I'm trying to find out about Elgin Villas, Shawlands - does anyone know its exact location? And does anyone know if any pictures of the building exist?

Any information regarding Elgin Villas would be very welcome.

Thanks for that Schiehallion, I just presumed it was villas just out of shot on Kilmarnock Rd, never realised it was tenements. Cheers for posting the pics too

sammycat wrote:Hello
I'm new to this forum.

I'm trying to find out about Elgin Villas, Shawlands - does anyone know its exact location? And does anyone know if any pictures of the building exist?

Hello Sam.
Where/how did you hear about Elgin Villas?
I'll nip over to the library (Borders) at lunchtime and have a look.

skintobalinto of course you're right. After reading what you said, I made a point of taking a diversion yesterday and looking at the site again. It really is an odd rambling layout... but there again I suppose it was a rational attempt at making the precinct accessible.

Hi Blueboy

Where/how did you hear about Elgin Villas?

Trying to track it down as it was the home of one Daniel McNicol, (my gr gr grandfather) who was a builder and mason in the 1871 census. I suspect it may have been one of the villas mentioned on this thread which have been demolished.

If you find anything, that would be great!