Hubbry Logo
search
logo
2244158

Maryhill

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
Maryhill

Maryhill (Scottish Gaelic: Cnoc Màiri) is an area in the north-west of Glasgow in Scotland. A former independent burgh and the heart of an eponymous local authority ward, its territory is bisected by Maryhill Road, part of the A81 road which runs for a distance of roughly three miles (five kilometres) between Glasgow city centre and the suburban town of Bearsden.

The far north west of the area is served by Maryhill railway station.

Hew Hill, the Laird, or Lord, of Gairbraid, had no male heir and so he left his estate to his daughter, Mary Hill (1730–1809). She married Robert Graham of Dawsholm in 1763, but they had no income from trade or commerce and had to make what they could from the estate. They founded coalmines on the estate but they proved to be wet and unprofitable.

On 8 March 1768 Parliament approved the cutting of the Forth and Clyde Canal through their estate, which provided some much-needed money. The canal reached the estate in 1775, but the canal company had run out of money and work stopped for eight years. The Government granted funds from forfeited Jacobite estates to start it again and the crossing of the River Kelvin became the focus for massive construction activity. Five locks, the great Kelvin Aqueduct and, between two of the locks, a dry dock boatyard were built. A village too began to grow up and the Grahams provided more land for its development; Robert Graham attached one condition that was to immortalise the heiress of Gairbraid, his wife and the last in line of centuries of Hills of Gairbraid after the death of her father Hew Hill. The then village was to be "in all times called the town of MaryHill".

The new canal waterway attracted industries including boat-building, saw-milling and ironfounding to its banks within Mary's estate. By 1830 the scattered houses had grown to form a large village with a population of 3000. The building of the Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway passing through Maryhill in the 1850s. The proximity of the Loch Katrine pipeline led to further growth, and in 1856 Maryhill became a burgh in its own right. It was absorbed into the boundaries of the city of Glasgow in 1891.

Part of the Antonine Wall runs through Maryhill, in the Maryhill Park area, where there is the site of a Roman fort adjoining the wall in nearby Bearsden. A Roman bath-house may still be seen there.

Maryhill had one of the first Temperance Society in Scotland after lawlessness filled the streets in the Victorian era.

Maryhill also boasts one of Glasgow's original Carnegie libraries, designed by the Inverness architect James Robert Rhind.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.