SHETTLESTON
Reproduced
with the kind permission of the author, Thomas Waugh.
“A
Papal Bull of 1179 addressed to the Bishop of Glasgow refers to "villam
filie Sedin" - the residence of Sedin's son or daughter, and a later
reference records a "Schedinestun", a place name which throughout the
Middle Ages appears in the rental book of the diocese of Glasgow spelt in 48
different ways.
A
charter granted by Alexander II in 1226 to the Bishop of Glasgow prohibited the
provost, baillies and officers of Rutherglen taking toll or custom in Glasgow
but permitting legal dues to be collected at "the cross of Shedenestun".
Most
authorities seems to agree that the "Schedenestun" in such old records
is the place now known as Shettleston, although the site of "the cross of
Schedenestun" may not be the location of what in modern times became known
as Shettleston Cross.
However,
it has also been said that being an old weaving village, the name was derived
from "Shuttles-town", and there are records with this spelling of the
name. In Ross's map of Lanarkshire
of 1773 it is spelt "Shuttleston", and the parish church has in its
possession five pewter communion vessels each inscribed "Shuttlestoun Kirk
- 1783."
Both
derivations of the name seem acceptable, the ancient form of "Schedinestun"
becoming over the centuries the modern Shettleston, whilst "Shuttlestoun"
was more probably the colloquial pronunciation of the name in the local dialect
at the end of the 19th century and is not too unlike the way it is pronounced by
some older residents even to this day.
Although
a church was built at Eastmuir in 1752, initially it was only a preaching
station and Shettleston did not become a separate parish until 1847.
Consequently in the Statistical Account of 1795 there is only a brief
reference to the building of houses to accommodate two to six families in the
thriving villages of Shettleston and Middle Quarter, which at that period had a
joint population of 766 inhabitants.
At
the start of the 19th century and for the next hundred years Shettleston could
be described as a group of four small and separate villages with the farmland
stretching northwards to the Monkland Canal and to the village of Tollcross to
the south. From the west Low
Carntyne ran from the Sheddings to Wellshot Road, Old Shettleston from Wellshot
Road to McNair Street, then Middle Quarter from McNair Street to Annick Street,
Eastmuir from Annick Street to Fingask Street and then Sandyhills (not the
housing scheme) running eastwards to Barrachnie.
Pigot's
Commercial Directory of 1837 records Shettleston as a considerable village
situated on the high road from Glasgow to Edinburgh chiefly inhabited by weavers
and through which passed six stage coaches per day bound for Edinburgh - the
"Express" at 6.00am, the "Telegraph" at 9.45am, the
"Regulator" at 12 noon, the "Enterprise" at 4.00pm, the
"Red Rover" at 5.45 pm, and the "Royal Mail" at 10.30pm.
Coal
was mined in the area as far back as 1600, and the Grays of Carntyne and the
McNairs of Greenfield owned and operated coal-mines in the area over several
generations, and together with the Dunlops of Tollcross who established the
Clyde Iron Works in 1786, were mainly responsible for the introduction of heavy
industry into this rural area.
By
the middle of the last century numerous coal-mines were in existence between the
Sheddings and Sandyhills [and their locations can be found on the map forming
the endpapers of this book.]
The
North British Railway opened a railway line through Shettleston to Edinburgh in
1871 with an extension to Hamilton in 1878.
By the end of the century the main industries were a weaving mill near
Pettigrew Street, J. & T. Boyd's Foundry in Budhill Street (now Old
Shettleston Road) and Thomson Black's Ropework with its long ropewalk shed
running behind the houses on the north side of Eastmuir Street and extending
from Station Road (Annick Street) to Gartocher Road.
Between
1890 and 1900 the parish doubled in population and the parish minister writing
of Shettleston in 1893 recorded that there were no trams or buses.
One or two people set out to secure for the folk of Shettleston some of
the comforts of the city and got horse buses as a great favour then horse trams.
After much agitation they got street lighting, and then pavements instead
of mud walks, which enabled workers to get to their factories with dry feet.
The thirty years up
to the outbreak of the Great war were a period of great change and expansion
with the building of tenements with shops on the ground floor on both sides of
Main Street (now Shettleston Road). The North British Bottle Manufacturing Co.
was established in 1904, and Shettleston Co-operative Society founded in 1882
opened a creamery in Pettigrew Street in 1910.
A new school - Eastbank Academy - was opened in 1894 and an extension for
primary pupils opened in 1912. A
number of local institutions still active to this day were founded during this
period, The Boys Brigade in 1894, Shettleston Football and Athletic Club in
1903, followed by Shettleston Harriers in 1904 and the opening of Shettleston
Bowling Club in 1907. All this expansion led to Shettleston being incorporated into
the City of Glasgow in 1912.
Shortly
after the Great War the rural aspect of the district began to change with the
building, on open land to the north, of the Carntyne Housing Scheme and on the
land to the south, the Sandyhills Housing Scheme. With the building of such facilities as public-baths and
wash-house in Elvan Street and a public hall and library in Wellshot Road, a
more urban appearance replaced the old rural scene.
Similar
changes continued after the Second World War with the building of houses on the
old Greenfield estate, the multi-storey blocks on the Sandyhills estate and the
large housing schemes of Barlanark, Garthamlock, Ruchazie and Easterhouse
erected on the outlying parts of the old parish of Shettleston.
More
recently the productive industries on which the community was based have
undergone a drastic recession and some of the sub-standard houses removed by
clearance schemes. To halt the
decline in the housing stock and to retain communities previously dispersed to
peripheral housing schemes, community housing associations were formed to
initiate the renovation of older type housing and bring them up to acceptable
tolerable standards.
The
Shettleston Housing Association was established in 1977 and since that date has
carried out various improvement contracts and encouraged the building of new
houses including sheltered accommodation for the elderly on selected sites in
the Shettleston area.
New
houses and the renovation of older property do much to re-vitalise an area, and
the work of the association has halted the population drift, and along with some
improved facilities offers new hope to the whole district.”
Waugh,
Thomas, M. (1986); “Shettleston From Old and New Photographs” Milngavie, Heatherbank Press.
