Long-lost album reveals stories behind Glasgow's area and street names

Or that Drygate means ‘priest’s way’? And that there really WAS a Mary Hill?

Barbara McKechnie knows all of this, and more, thanks to a hidden gem she discovered when clearing out her late uncle Tommy’s house.

“There was a box of stuff, old postcards and memorabilia from his time in Canada, and this album, which he made himself over many years,” she explains.

“I hadn’t looked at it in years, but it is really interesting and tells some great stories about Glasgow. There are no names or dates, so I’m not sure which newspaper it appeared in, but I think it’s the Glasgow Evening Times or Glasgow Herald.”

Tommy’s album, Why It Is Called… comprises newspaper clippings, meticulously cut out and pasted in by Tommy Lang. Each one reveals the story behind a Glasgow street or area name, and it makes for fascinating reading.

Mary Hill, for example, was the proprietor of the lands at Gairbraid where houses were built for the canal workers.

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In July 1793, she drew up a contractwith her husband Robert Graham and Robert Craig, a grocer, which feued a portion of the land. The clipping states: “being a lot of that ground laid out for building a town upon, which is to extend from Glasgow to Garscube Bridge, conform to a plan thereof and which it is hereby provided shall be in all times called the town of Maryhill.” It adds: “Mary evidently had a vey good opinion of herself,” although neglects to speak quite so sniffily about all the men who named areas or streets after themselves.

Landressy Street in Bridgeton, for example, home to Glasgow Women’s Library, was a corruption of Landres, the town in France from which a dye-maker called Papillon came. Papillon was employed by George McIntosh and David Dale in the 18th century to manufacture turkey-red dye at their dye works in Dalmarnock.

Dalmarnock comes from ‘dael’ or ‘dal’ meaning field or dell and ‘marnock’ or ‘muranach’, which means ‘coarse grass’. The old spelling, according to Tommy’s clippings, was ‘Dalmurnech’ and refers to a time when the area was ‘most beautiful with copse and wild flowers.’

Tommy’s own story is interesting too, as Barbara explains.

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“He lived in Gilshochill for all of his 96 years,” she says. “He worked at Kennedy’s, where he was a carpet fitter and upholsterer.

“I remember visiting him when I was a young child. It would be me on the settee, sitting between my dad and my Uncle Tommy, not allowed to speak but listening to all the chat and not really sure what they were talking about.”

Tommy was married to Meg and the couple had had one child, who sadly died just moments after being born.

“It was never spoken of, like things were in those days,” says Barbara.

“Tommy was a mechanic in the RAF and he spent some time in Canada, which he loved. It was where he first ate pizza, he used to tell us and spent a long time looking for one in this country which was just as good.”

Barbara smiles: “He never found one. But his home was always Glasgow and he loved Maryhill. He often spoke about his childhood growing up there. He was very interested in the city’s history.

“He even made the album and upholstered it himself.”