Maryhill
Encyclopedia
Maryhill is an area of the City of Glasgow in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Maryhill is a former burgh
Burgh
A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...

. The population of Maryhill is about 52,000. Maryhill stretches over 7 miles (11.3 km) along Maryhill Road. Several sub-districts belong to the Maryhill district, such as Acre, Dawsholm Park, Firhill, Gairbraid, Gilshochill
Gilshochill
Gilshochill is located to the north west of Maryhill in the City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is the district of which the location of the Forth and Clyde Canal meets the Port Dundas branch of the canal. It is immediately to the north of the location of the Maryhill basin and Maryhill loch. Gilshochill...

, Maryhill Park
Maryhill Park
Maryhill Park is an area of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It is within the Maryhill district, within the North West of the city. Unlike much of the rest of Maryhill, the population is predominantly middle-class and the property type in the area consists mainly of Victorian semi-detached town...

, North Kelvinside
North Kelvinside
North Kelvinside is a middle-class residential district of the Scottish city of Glasgow....

, Queen's Cross, St George's Cross, Summerston
Summerston
Summerston is a residential area of Glasgow, Scotland. There is a riding school used by Strathclyde Police Mounted Branch. John Paul Academy, one of Glasgow's 11 Roman Catholic secondary schools is in Summerston. 4th Glasgow Beaver Colony and Cub Scout Pack are based in Summerston in Caldercuilt...

, Woodside
Woodside, Glasgow
Woodside is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow. It is situated north of the River Clyde, between the River Kelvin and the Forth and Clyde canal....

 and Wyndford
Wyndford
Wyndford is an area of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Located in the Maryhill district in the Northwest of the city, Wyndford is bounded by Maryhill Road to the north and the River Kelvin to the south. The area comprises council housing that is typical of that which was built throughout Glasgow...

.

The far north west of the area is served by Maryhill railway station
Maryhill railway station
Maryhill railway station is a railway station serving the Maryhill area of Glasgow, Scotland. It is located on the Maryhill Line, 8 km north west of Glasgow Queen Street, a short distance east of Maryhill Viaduct and Maryhill Park Junction. It has two side platforms...

.

History

Hew Hill, the Laird
Laird
A Laird is a member of the gentry and is a heritable title in Scotland. In the non-peerage table of precedence, a Laird ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire.-Etymology:...

, or Lord
Lord
Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...

, of Gairbraid, had no male heir and so he left his estate to his daughter, Mary
Mary Hill
-People:*Mary Hill, Countess of Hillsborough . British peeress, daughter of the 4th Baron Stawell*Mary Hill, Marchioness of Downshire , landowner and politician*Mary Courtney Kennedy Hill, full name of Courtney Kennedy Hill...

. She married Robert Graham
Robert Graham
Robert Graham may refer to:*Sir Robert Graham , one of the assassins of James I of Scotland*Robert Graham of Gartmore , Scottish politician and poet...

 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, and their property ventures are best known for an acre of ground they did not sell. It is still known as Acre today.

No doubt they would have continued with the struggle, but on the 8 March 1768 Parliament approved the cutting of the Forth and Clyde Canal
Forth and Clyde Canal
The Forth and Clyde Canal crosses Scotland, providing a route for sea-going vessels between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. The canal is 35 miles long and its eastern end is connected to the River Forth by a short stretch of the River...

 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
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 estates to start it again and the crossing of the River Kelvin
River Kelvin
The Kelvin rises on watershed of Scotland on the moor south east of the village of Banton, east of Kilsyth - . At almost 22 miles long, it initially flows south to Dullatur Bog where it falls into a man made trench and takes a ninety degree turn flowing west along the northern boundary of the bog...

 became the focus for massive construction activity. Five locks, the great Kelvin Aqueduct
Kelvin Aqueduct
The Kelvin Aqueduct is an aqueduct in Glasgow which carries the Forth and Clyde Canal over the River Kelvin. It is long and high, and when opened in 1790 was Britain's largest. It is protected as a category A listed building.-External links:**...

 and, between two of the locks, a dry dock
Dry dock
A drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform...

 boatyard were built. A village too began to grow up and the Grahams fed more land for its development; Robert Graham attached one condition that was to immortalise the heiress of Gairbraid, his beloved 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 people. The building of the Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway
Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway
Glasgow, Dumbarton and Helensburgh Railway is an historic railway in Scotland.-History:It was authorised by an Act of Parliament on 14 August 1855.The railway was absorbed by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway on 31 July 1862....

 passing through Maryhill in the 1850s, and the proximity of the Loch Katrine
Loch Katrine
Loch Katrine is a freshwater loch in the district of Stirling, Scotland. It is roughly 8 miles long by 2/3 of a mile wide and runs the length of Strath Gartney...

 pipeline, led to further growth and in 1856 Maryhill became a burgh in its own right ('burgh' is an old word for town in Scotland). It was later absorbed into the city of Glasgow's boundaries in 1891.

A part of the Antonine Wall
Antonine Wall
The Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. Representing the northernmost frontier barrier of the Roman Empire, it spanned approximately 39 miles and was about ten feet ...

 runs through Maryhill, in the Maryhill Park area, where there is the site of a Roman fort adjoining the wall in nearby Bearsden
Bearsden
Bearsden ) is a town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It lies on the northwestern fringe of Greater Glasgow, approximately from the City Centre, and is effectively a suburb, with housing development coinciding with the introduction of a railway line in 1863, and from where the town gets its name...

.

Maryhill had the first Temperance Society
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...

 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 after lawlessness filled the streets in the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

.

Maryhill also boasts one of Glasgow's original Carnegie libraries, deftly designed by the Inverness architect James Robert Rhind
James Robert Rhind
James Robert Rhind, architect, was born in Inverness, Scotland in 1854 and trained as an architect in his father's local practice.He was successful in the architectural competition for new libraries to be constructed in Glasgow following Andrew Carnegie’s gift of £100,000 to the city in 1901...

.

Maryhill Barracks was opened in 1872 and once dominated the area that is now the Wyndford
Wyndford
Wyndford is an area of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Located in the Maryhill district in the Northwest of the city, Wyndford is bounded by Maryhill Road to the north and the River Kelvin to the south. The area comprises council housing that is typical of that which was built throughout Glasgow...

 housing estate. It was home to the Scots Greys
Scots Greys
The Royal Scots Greys was a cavalry regiment of the British Army from 1707 until 1971, when they amalgamated with the 3rd Carabiniers to form The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards ....

 and the Highland Light Infantry
Highland Light Infantry
The Highland Light Infantry was a regiment of the British Army from 1881 to 1959. In 1923 the regimental title was expanded to the Highland Light Infantry ...

, and famously held Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

's second-in-command Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 after his supposed "peace" flight to the UK.
The barracks were decommissioned in the early 1960s. However the Territorial Army unit, the 52nd Lowland
52nd Lowland Regiment
The 52nd Lowland Regiment now forms the 6th Battalion of The Royal Regiment of Scotland, also known as 6 SCOTS. Due to its erstwhile association with the 1st Regiment of Foot, it is the senior Territorial line infantry battalion in the British Army...

, 6th Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Scotland continues to be based at the adjacent Walcheren Barracks
Walcheren Barracks
Walcheren Barracks is a Drill hall located at Hotspur Street in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland. The current building was originally constructed in 1935 as the new Headquarters of the 9th Battalion, The Highland Light Infantry, which moved from 81 Greendyke Street near Glasgow Green...

. 32 (Scottish) Signal Regiment
32 (Scottish) Signal Regiment
The 32nd Signal Regiment is a British Territorial Army regiment of the Royal Corps of Signals.- Regimental heritage :The 1st Lanarkshire Engineer Regiment were raised in Glasgow on 5 December 1859 as part of the Volunteer Force. The regiment was formally registered with the War Office on 27...

 is also based near Kelvinside
Kelvinside
Kelvinside is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow. It is situated north of the River Clyde and is bounded by Dowanhill, Hyndland and Broomhill to the South with Kelvindale and the River Kelvin to the North...

, with 105 Regiment, Royal Artillery in nearby Partick
Partick
Partick is an area of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde, just across from Govan. To the west lies Whiteinch. Partick was a Police burgh from 1852 until 1912 when it was incorporated into the city.-History:...

.

Maryhill was known as the Venice of the North
Venice of the North
The term Venice of the North refers to various cities in northern Europe that contain canals, comparing them to Venice, Italy, which is renowned for its canals .* Saint Petersburg* Amsterdam* Bruges* Stockholm* Copenhagen* Hamburg...

 for its canals and also for being the centre of the glass industry, with its Caledonia Works and Glasgow Works.

Governance

Maryhill is a constituent member of the Scottish Parliament
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament...

, known as Glasgow Maryhill
Glasgow Maryhill (Scottish Parliament constituency)
Glasgow Maryhill is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament . It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament by the plurality method of election...

. Glasgow Maryhill
Glasgow Maryhill (UK Parliament constituency)
Glasgow Maryhill was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until 2005 when it was subsumed into the new Glasgow North and Glasgow North East constituencies...

 was a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 from 1918 until 2005 when it was subsumed into the new Glasgow North constituency.

Demography

The entire population of the Maryhill area of the city is around 52,000.

The Maryhill area has the largest Chinese community in Scotland and is one of the most multicultural districts of Glasgow.

Economy

Many areas in the north of Glasgow are below the normal UK standard of living. However, not all areas of North Glasgow are in poor condition. Maryhill is in the north west of the city, and consists of well maintained traditionally "Glaswegian" sandstone tenements with the traditional high ceilings as well as many large Victorian town houses. There are also large housing association-run housing estates. Although historically a working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 area, it is relatively wealthy compared to the rest of the north of the city, containing a large student population as well as a large number who could be described as middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

. It is home to a large variety of people who work in the Scottish media, politicians, doctors and lawyers as well as working class citizens.

The district contains the Wyndford
Wyndford
Wyndford is an area of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Located in the Maryhill district in the Northwest of the city, Wyndford is bounded by Maryhill Road to the north and the River Kelvin to the south. The area comprises council housing that is typical of that which was built throughout Glasgow...

 and Gairbraid estate, a housing estate with a population of almost 5,000, containing a number of high-rise housing blocks, the highest four reaching heights of 26 storeys. These are intermixed with lower residences to create an estate of significant housing contrast and variety.

The current Lord Provost of Glasgow, Bob Winter
Bob Winter
Robert 'Bob' Winter is the Lord Provost of Glasgow. He was first elected a Labour councillor on Glasgow City Council in 1999, serving the Summerston ward. In 2007, he was re-elected as one of four councillors for Ward 15, which includes Maryhill and the Kelvin area of Glasgow's West End...

, is Maryhill's local councillor. He was elected to the post shortly after the local and national Scottish Election in May 2007.

Sport

Maryhill is home to Firhill Stadium
Firhill Stadium
Firhill Stadium or Firhill Arena is a football, rugby union and rugby league stadium located in the Maryhill area of Glasgow, Scotland. As of 2010 it is the home ground of football club Partick Thistle F.C...

, home of Partick Thistle since 1909, and since 2005, the professional Rugby Union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 team, Glasgow Warriors
Glasgow Warriors
The Glasgow Warriors, formerly Glasgow Rugby, are one of two professional rugby union teams in Scotland, Edinburgh being the other. They play in the RaboDirect Pro12 and their home ground is Firhill Stadium, also the home of Partick Thistle Football Club.-History:Glasgow Rugby were created to...

. The junior
Scottish Junior Football Association
The Scottish Junior Football Association is an affiliated national association of the Scottish Football Association and is the governing body for the Junior grade of football in Scotland. The term "Junior" refers to the level of football played...

 team, Maryhill F.C.
Maryhill F.C.
Maryhill Football Club are a football team based in the Maryhill area of Glasgow, Scotland. Members of the Scottish Junior Football Association, they currently play in the West Region, Central Division Two....

 and Glasgow's oldest athletic club (Maryhill Harriers) are also located in Maryhill.

Architecture, canalside and modernisation

Ruchill Church Hall was designed by Charles Rennie Macintosh.

The Forth and Clyde Canal
Forth and Clyde Canal
The Forth and Clyde Canal crosses Scotland, providing a route for sea-going vessels between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. The canal is 35 miles long and its eastern end is connected to the River Forth by a short stretch of the River...

 flows through Maryhill, at one stage forming a vital part of the local economy. It was for many years polluted and largely unused after the decline of heavy industry, but recent efforts to regenerate and re-open the canal to navigation have seen it rejuvenated. Along the canalside, from the city centre along into Maryhill: plans for canalside flats, similar to the rejuvenation of old industrial warehouses in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, have been granted.

Twenty unique stained glass windows were produced by Stephen Adam in 1878 for the Maryhill Burgh Halls, depicting the many varied industries and occupations of Maryhill's inhabitants. The Burgh Hall, part of a complex of listed buildings including the former Baths & Wash-houses, the former Fire Station, and former Police Station, is currently being restored in a £9.2M regeneration project, and a number of the original stained glass windows should be on display from late 2011.

Education

Maryhill did house Glasgow's and indeed Scotland's first ever Gaelic language primary schools, where children are taught in the Scottish Gaelic language only. This is no longer true, as the old Woodside Secondary School, in the Anderston
Anderston
Anderston is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow. It is on the north bank of the River Clyde and extends to the western edge of the city centre...

 area now houses a combined nursery, primary education and secondary education, Gaelic school.

Maryhill in the media

Maryhill has been the location for a number of television programmes and films, namely:
  • Taggart
    Taggart
    Taggart is a Scottish detective television programme, created by Glenn Chandler, who has written many of the episodes, and made by STV Productions for the ITV network...

    , an internationally famous Glaswegian detective television programme, which is translated into many languages including German
    German language
    German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

     and Japanese
    Japanese language
    is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

     is set and filmed in Maryhill. Fans and tourists still come to the Maryhill Police Station to take photographs.

  • Trainspotting
    Trainspotting (film)
    Trainspotting is a 1996 British satirical/drama film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life...

    , A cafe in Maryhill was used as a set in Trainspotting, Jaconelli's at the Queens Cross area. Also, Crosslands on Queen Margaret Drive was the pub where Begbie started a fight by throwing a glass over his head into a crowded bar.

  • A short-lived 1960s TV soap High Living created by (then) Cowcaddens-based Scottish Television
    Scottish Television
    Scottish Television is Scotland's largest ITV franchisee, and has held the ITV franchise for Central Scotland since 31 August 1957. It is the second oldest ITV franchisee still active...

     was set in a tower block in the Wyndford
    Wyndford
    Wyndford is an area of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Located in the Maryhill district in the Northwest of the city, Wyndford is bounded by Maryhill Road to the north and the River Kelvin to the south. The area comprises council housing that is typical of that which was built throughout Glasgow...

     area of Maryhill, however as a totally studio-based drama, it relied of pictures of the flats as part of the opening and closing title sequences.

  • The hit BBC
    BBC
    The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

     television comedy series Chewin' the Fat
    Chewin' the Fat
    Chewin' the Fat is a Scottish comedy sketch show, starring Ford Kiernan, Greg Hemphill and Karen Dunbar. Comedians Paul Riley and Mark Cox also appeared regularly on the show.Chewin' the Fat first started as a radio series on BBC Radio Scotland...

    was filmed in the area, a precedent followed by its successor the sitcom Still Game
    Still Game
    Still Game is a Scottish sitcom, produced by The Comedy Unit with the BBC. It was created by Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill, who play the lead characters - two Glaswegian pensioners, named Jack Jarvis and Victor McDade respectively....

    . They often showed local features including the Forth and Clyde Canal
    Forth and Clyde Canal
    The Forth and Clyde Canal crosses Scotland, providing a route for sea-going vessels between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. The canal is 35 miles long and its eastern end is connected to the River Forth by a short stretch of the River...

    in the background and several other areas and landmarks of Maryhill in outdoor shots.
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