SECTION IV - THEN AND NOW
MONKLAND CANAL
The Monkland Canal was created out of a need to convey coal easily and cheaply from collieries outwith Glasgow, and in 1769 Glasgow Town Council discussed plans for "communication with some distant collieries by water." James Watt was commissioned to survey a suitable route from Monkland collieries to the city.
88) Monkland Canal - about 1905. Towpath with horse pulling barge, looking eastward to Milncroft.
Early in 1770 a scheme was agreed on, a subscription list opened , and by April 1770 the Monkland Canal Act was passed which empowered the proprietors "to make a cut or canal of three feet depths of water from the Monkland Collieries of north Lanark beginning at a place called Sheep Ford in the parish of Old Monkland, passing by or near the house of Drumpellier, by or near Wellhouse Bleachfield to or near the City of Glasgow."
The proposed stretch of the canal was divided into 100 yard sections which were auctioned to contractors, with James Watt engaged to supervise the construction of the canal.
89) Monkland Canal - Queenslie Bridge - about 1960.
Despite difficulties, such as the unsatisfactory work of some contactors and lack of money, the canal slowly edged westward, passing through the northern part of Shettleston Parish with Easterhouse Bridge completed in October 1771, Bartiebeith in September 1772, Queenslie in October 1772, with the canal terminating just west of Gartcraig Bridge in May 1773.
Work on the canal then ceased for a period, mainly due to lack of capital. The original proprietors adversely affected by the American War which started in 1775, were unable to subscribe additional finance. In 1782 the company stock was sold at public auction and the new proprietors extended the canal westward, completing the locks at Blackhill in 1794 and shortly thereafter joining with the Forth and Clyde Canal at Port Dundas.
The canal company did not act as carriers, providing a waterway with wharves for loading and unloading, on which boats could ply for traffic and collecting tolls for the transit of such commodities as coal, iron and steel, stones, timber and lime, and with on the normally empty run eastward paving stones and manure carried free. From about 1814 to 1846 passengers were also carried, with a journey time from Coatbridge to Glasgow of 2˝ hours and with initially one boat, later two boats per day in each direction.
Prosperity only came to the canal after 1800, with the expansion of the Monkland collieries and the opening during the first few decades of the 19th century of numerous blast furnaces for the manufacture of iron and steel. In 1846 the Monkland Canal Company amalgamated with the Forth and Clyde Canal Company and the next twenty years were the boom years of the canal. By 1850 traffic on the canal exceeded a million tons per year carried in barges of up to 60 ton burden towed by one horse and operated by a boatman and a horseman.
From 1867 trade declined due to the exhaustion of many of the coalpits, and in 1867 the canal was taken over by the Caledonian Railway. From then on, little was done to revive it, until in 1935 traffic finally ceased. In 1950 it was officially abandoned and in 1961 Glasgow Corporation approved plans for the conversions of sections of the canal into a modern highway.
Now almost the whole stretch of the canal has been filled in and cars speed along the motorway built on the bed of the old canal where once horses slowly pulled barges laden with coal along the canal which in its day was the most profitable in Scotland.
90) M8 Motorway from Gartcraig Bridge - 1987. Part of the M8 Motorway built on that section of the canal shown in photograph 88. The three multi-storeys were built on the site of old waste tips known by generations of east-end children as the “Sugaroillie Mountains” and a popular place for playing endless games, the most exciting being sliding down the steep smooth sides of the bings on an old tin tray or on a piece of old linoleum.
91) Sandyhills Farm outbuildings - about 1964.
The site of Sandyhills Farm and the adjacent land northwards to the railway line is the location of two housing estates - Meadowlea and Hawthorn Lea.
92) Meadowlea Housing Development - 1987.
93) Gatepost on south parapet of Sandyhills Bridge - 1987. The entrance to a large house called The Grange, which due to to its close proximity to the old Shettleston to Hamilton railway line, (the Glasgow city boundary for many years) was often referred to as the last house in Shettleston.
94) The Grange - about 1914. On the left the sleeper fence along the railway cutting and in the distance the bridge taking Sandyhills Road over the railway line.
95) Loch Laidon Street - 1987. The bungalow on the left being the approximate location of the old Grange house.
EASTBANK PRIMARY SCHOOL
96) Houses, 1609-11 Shettleston Road in course of demolition, 1964, in preparation for the building of the new primary school.
97) Eastbank Primary School, in the course of construction, 1966. The school was officially opened in 1969.
98) Eastbank Primary School - 1987.
99) Forbes - Newsagents and Tobacconists, 1406 Shettleston Road - about 1917. Robert Forbes standing in the doorway of shop he took over in 1917 and opened as a Newsagent and Tobacconist and which was run by the Forbes family over three generations. The shop stood at the corner of Killin Street and Shettleston Road and the street names on the side of the shop wall show that Killin Street was previously Dalree Street and before that Church Road.
100) Eastbank Cottage, Hope Cottage and Shop, Shettleston Road - about 1981. Built about 1886 and demolished to make way for the Annick Street/Killin Street re-alignment.
101) Killin Street/Shettleston Road corner on completion of Annick Street re-alignment - 1987.
102) Dickson's Row, Main Street - (Shettleston Road) - about 1906. A row of cottages typical of the clachan type houses which at one time made up the main housing stock in Shettleston . The row ran from the corner of Springfield Road (Amulree Street) westward along the south side of Main Street (Shettleston Road). The cottages were demolished in the early twenties and a store for the Shettleston Co-operative Society built on the site.
103) CWS Pricefighter Store, 1158 Shettleston Road - 1987. The store that replaced the old cottages was in mid fifties converted into a mini-market and after the demise of the Shettleston Co-operative Society was redeveloped and opened by the CWS as a supermarket.
104) Shettleston Road between Blair Street and St Mark Street - 1962. A tramcar proceeding citywards along Shettleston Road on a rather dull and gloomy day in October, 1962.
105) Shettleston Road between Blair Street and St Mark Street - 1987.
106) J.C.Watt's - Avondale Works, Old Shettleston Road - about 1930.
107) McKellar Watt Ltd, Old Shettleston Road - 1987.
108) Hill Street (Edrom Street) - about 1900. Looking northwards down Hill Street (Edrom Street) towards Main Street (Shettleston Road) with on the right the Shettleston Sabbath School Association Hall.
109) Edrom Street - 1987.
110) Old Shettleston Road - about 1900.
The Old cottages and houses which stood at what is now Old Shettleston Road/Fernan Street corner. The first three cottages were demolished about 1930 and a house, offices and stables built on the site by the firm of William Rae, Haulage Contractors.
111) Old Shettleston Road/Fernan Street corner - 1987.
