Maryhill – a look back to looking ahead

Words by John Thomson

Kelvindock in December 1967 by David Holgate (Drumchapel Camera Club)

In 1978, a young American lady from Missouri, according to the Evening Times, was given ‘the task of rebuilding Maryhill’ which was a journalist’s way of explaining that Marilyn Higgins was a Glasgow District Council Planning Officer charged with implementing the Maryhill Local Plan, the biggest of its kind in Scotland.

Marilyn went on to say that ‘Maryhill and Missouri may be different, but Maryhill has so much character and personality I think it’s going to be something different.’

Aye. Right.

Mind you, it’s not the first time that Maryhill’s future, and indeed, its past, have been discussed in the press and it would be interesting to know what some of those writers would think of Maryhill today. A random trawl through the newspapers of fairly recent times can reveal a lot.

In 1968 C(harles) A. Mckean, who went on to become a prominent architectural historian, described Maryhill as a village where ‘the beautiful and romantic Kelvin is overgrown with weeds and surrounded by rubbish………The canal is concealed behind walks and hoardings, and the view over to the hills is obscured by dingy street lights and disfigured by waste and derelict ground.’

The answer was simple.

‘The canal (should) be put to good use and its banks cleared of the corrugated iron shacks, walls and hoardings. The canal is there to be seen, not to be hidden, for it has the most beautiful situation.’

His concern was that the canal was to be destroyed, given up to yet another motorway scheme trampling its way through the Glasgow streets.

The Glasgow journalist and bon vivant, Jack House, was another one to extol the virtues of the canal but particularly where the aqueduct carries the canal over the River Kelvin, described by some (in Maryhill) as the Eighth Wonder of the World and by others as

‘the beautiful and romantic situation of the aqueduct carrying a great artificial river over a deep valley 400ft in length, where square-rigged vessels are sometimes seen navigating at the height of 70ft above the heads of spectators, affords such a striking industry as pleases every spectator and gives it a pre-eminence over everything of a similar nature in the kingdom.’

And do you know what? Their dreams came true.

The revitalised Kelvin Walkway links Glasgow city centre with Milngavie and from there to the West Highland Way.

The canal was cleared and re-emerged as more than just a much used waterway between the East and West coasts of Scotland. There’s an art park on the ‘other side’ of the canal featuring Bella the Beithir, a 120-metre-long momentus sculpture situated next to the new Stockingfield Bridge, commissioned by Scottish Canals and a major source of interest to locals and visitors alike.

Further down the canal, on the way into town and the reinvigorated Speirs Wharf, is Hamiltonhill Claypits Local Nature Reserve, the biggest inner-city parkland in Glasgow with a superb view over the whole of Glasgow and an amazing range of wildlife from deer to bumble bees – not bad for a disused quarry and old and decrepit wasteland which is now a thriving community reserve.

But there’s more so much more in these press cuttings than the green, green grass of Maryhill.

In 1986, as highlighted in the Evening Times, the locals of Maryhill took on the might of the, then, Scottish Office and Strathclyde Regional Council in order to save a wall – but this was no ordinary wall. This was the wall surrounding the Wyndford housing estate in Maryhill – formerly a huge army barracks where Rudolf Hess, a deputy of Adolf Hitler, was briefly detained during World War II in his unsuccessful bid for peace. The Community Council saw it as an ‘important piece of local history that ought to be preserved.’ And not only did they save the wall, but they also saved the barracks’ guard house and the bollards offering protection from the Maryhill Road. There are some photos of the wall on the mezzanine floor of Maryhill Burgh Halls.

Ah, yes, the Halls.

Built in 1878, and designed by the distinguished architect, Duncan McNaughton, they had been allowed to fall into wrack and ruin but in 1981, the Evening Times described the fight of Maryhill Burgh Community Centre Trust (sic) to buy the Halls for £100 in order to rebuild them.

They were successful but, according to the Times, they still had to find £500,000 to combat dry rot and pay for the much needed restoration. That was to be in the future and there were many hills to climb before the actual Halls re-building and refurbishment by the current Maryhill Burgh Halls Trust was to begin.

This wasn’t until 2009 and by then, it had become a £9.2 million restoration project but a very successful one. It offers office accommodation for rental, as well as recording studios and a private nursery. It also provides excellent exhibition space for a whole range of exhibitions and currently has a major tenant in the Maryhill Hub, which, in itself, provides a wide range of activities for the area, following its need to move from the redeveloped Wyndford housing scheme.

So much of this story, about the Kelvin and the Canal and the buildings in the area, are available from the Halls in the guise of a range of well written and well illustrated walking guides to the area available from the Halls’ Reception.

But, yes, built in 1878, so that must mean that in 2028, the Halls will celebrate their 150th Anniversary. So, what does the future hold for the building?

The Evening Times got it right all those years ago.

‘It is a fine old building. As a community centre it would give the new Maryhill a heart. All power and support to the people who have taken on such a tough but worthwhile task.’

What do you imagine Maryhill’s future to be?

We would like to thank Richard Ward for generously sharing newspaper clippings that supported our research.