A MIDWIFE, Sister Taylor, pictured on her morning rounds visiting mums-to-be and new babies, smiles in the early light on the streets of Old Kinning Park in March, 1957.
Down at Plantation Quay, in October 1956, the Captain Cook towers above the watching crowds as it welcomes aboard emigrating families, bidding a final farewell to the city as they leave for New Zealand.
For such a small part of Glasgow, Old Kinning Park and Plantation are “alive with history”, according to an amateur historian who has been fascinated by the area since childhood.
Brian D Henderson has been running heritage walks around the streets of this part of the city for 10 years and his latest, on September 17, will form part of Glasgow’s Doors Open Day festival.
“Doors Open Day certainly opened a major door for me and it’s thanks to my friend and local history buff Drew McMahon – the first Kinning Park walk was his idea,” says Brian.
“It was a golden opportunity to join him, and then set up my own version. I’m grateful to the team at Glasgow City Archives too, who allowed me to use images from their collection.”
Plantation is so called because the area’s owner in 1783 was a West Indies merchant called John Robertson, who owned several sugar and cotton plantations (he changed it from Craigiehall). It sits where the main roads to Paisley and Govan meet. In 1793, the land was sold to John Mair, a former stonemason, and in 1829 Plantation was bought by William MacLean, dyer and manufacturer.
Kinning Park lies to the west of the city centre, between Tradeston and Ibrox. Originally a separate police burgh founded in 1871, with its own council, elections, coat of arms, police force and fire brigade, it became part of Glasgow in 1905.
Many of its oldest streets were demolished to make way for the new M8 motorway.
He adds: “So many streets – Keyden, Tower, St James, to name a few – are familiar to me.
“Recently I helped tell the story of Private Francis Coreri in Times Past – his is a fascinating story, stretching from Tipperary to Glasgow, and his family moved to Keyden Street after his death.
“So many families lived in the tenements on this street, coping with the most basic of amenities, very much a sign of the times – but there was a great community spirit nonetheless.”
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Brian adds: “I’ll also be talking about another soldier, Private Alex McIntosh who seems to have been one of the ‘Old Toll Chums’, at the Old Toll Bar. The pub has no information about him, but he lived at number 19 Tower Street and was sadly reported missing in August 1916 – maybe some Times Past readers will be able to shed light on who he was and what happened to him?
“This is a very poignant aspect of Old Kinning Park history as it relates to the so-called ‘war to end all wars’.”
Brian, whose long-gone ancestor Chaurie Hopewell lived around Clark and Tower Street in the 1870s, is also on the hunt for photos of and information about numbers five to 19 Tower Street and 190 to 196 St James Street (now Seaward Street).
“Perhaps they are tucked away in someone‘s bottom drawer,” he says. “This whole area has changed beyond recognition but the history remains. These two districts cast a spell on me in early childhood and hopefully I can paint a small picture of them for others, and bring these stories alive.”
Brian’s Doors Open Day walk starts at 11am on Saturday, September 17, at Kinning Park underground station on Cornwall Street.
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