Welcome to the History
Channel. We have extensive pages showing the history of
Healthcare, Shipbuilding, Education, Singer's Sewing
Machine Factory, Housing and the Clydebank
Blitz.
To view some fantastic
Scottish history captured on film from the BBC click here
: BBC History (Broadband
Only)
In
the beginning...
Prior to around 1870, Clydebank (or rather, the area of
land around Barns o' Clyde) was mainly comprised of small
cottages and rural farm buildings. It's surprising then
that such well constructed houses and well organised
streets were built and maintained. It was of course all
down to the Shipbuilders, with their desire to house their
workers.
Building Clydebank
When the Thomson brothers setup their Clydebank Shipyard,
they decided that they would build homes for their workers
near to the main gate of the yard. It made good economic
sense, workers right on their doorstep, no more excuses
about not being able to get to work from Glasgow or the
Vale because it was snowing!. So, they built tenements -
the traditional form of urban multi-storey buildings in the
West of Scotland.
The building work was completed in 1872, resulting in
housing that accommodate almost 700 people. They were
colloquially known as "Thomson's Buildings". In the early
1880's the Thomson's sold some of their land to property
developers, allowing them to build over 100 tenements.
These were built in what became Union, Cunard and Clyde
Streets. Other house builders then decided to build
tenements on land across from the shipyard, in what became
Hume and Canal Streets.
So, with the growth of housing around this area, it's not
really surprising that these tenements quickly became the
centre of a new industrial village over the coming months
and years.
More houses, we need more houses!
Clyde Navigation Trust built 6 tenements in Dalmuir (in
what became Nairn Street). Yet more were built at the west
end of Yoker in 1877 by Shanks and Bell Shipbuilders (this
is the area between Elgin Street and Hamilton Terrace).
When the Singer Sewing Machine Co. arrived in Clydebank,
yet more houses would be required. Yet Singer only built
TWO tenements to house the watchmen, firemen and foremen!!!
House developers quickly latched onto this and quickly
built many more -mainly on Kilbowie Road and the roads
leading off if it, as well as in Radnor Park (which was
originally just a small village).
The house building boom continued, with 1700 new homes
built by 1906. The population grew accordingly to 26,000.
Because of the demand for houses, the new houses were
quickly occupied and over crowding became a problem. Only
the building of yet more houses would solve the problem, so
Clydebank boundaries were extended in 1906.
This new land included Radnor Park, Kilbowie Road and
adjoining areas.
Robert McAlpine built a series of massive extensions to the
Singer factory (starting in 1904), and as demand for houses
was high they bought land north of the factory (west of
Kilbowie Road) on which to build new homes for the new
workers. This land was, at the time, outside the boundary,
so the land was cheap, and the average rent was around £9
per year (around £2 less than the average). These houses
are what became known as the "Holy City", and were
completed in 1906.
Too good to last?
The house building boom came to an abrupt halt when the
recession in local trades in 1907. When the local economy
started to recover around 1911, nearly one fifth of the
nearly 9000 houses lay empty. Confidence in Clydebank's
future growth and success forced property developers to
look for other ways to get a greater return on their
investment in housebuilding.
Robert McAlpine concentrated on building smaller tenements
and villas on land to the west of the Holy City, nicknamed
"The Better Land".
The exception to all this was William Beardmore & Co.
who built nearly 300 homes in the area now lies between
Scott and Dunn Streets, and in Agamemnon Street. Castle
Square was completed in 1918, providing 50 new tenement
buildings for the burgeoning shipyards.
After the Great War...
The First World War brought house building to a virtual
standstill, less than a thousand houses were built between
1914 and 1918. The Addison Act of 1919, intended to
facilitate a new house building program through generous
subsidies, brought with it it's own problems. Completed
contracts had to be paid
before the subsidy would be
provided, planning approval and tendering for work took so
long (partly down to the local council trying to favour
local contractors) and objections from landowners over lan
prices.
The greatest problem was not those mentioned above, but
that of building supplies and skilled manpower. To try and
overcome this, new building techniques were experimented
with. One such experiment involved construction of over 150
bungalows using re-inforced concrete walls, giving a
variety of two, three and four apartments per house at a
cost of up to £400.
The construction was particularly unique in that wood was
used to create a frame, into which concrete was poured.
Once set, the wood was removed and used to form the ceiling
of the house - truly ingenious!
Other building methods were looked at, including the now
infamous "Steel Hoose" - the Athol steel house. This was
designed and supplied by a subsidiary of Beardmore (one of
their many diversifications) with a total of over 1,000
eventually erected.
The new housing estates of Whitecrook, Parkhall and
Mountblow were extremely generously laid out, a huge change
from existing high density Burgh housing. This type of
layout made the Burgh much larger than ever before, in
particular the area North of Dumbarton Road at Whitecrook
covered more than twice the land as required by housing
before the First World War.
With the building of these new homes, there was an
opportunity to use the latest in home convenience and
fittings, in particular gas AND electricity - interestingly
the initial flat weekly charge for electricity use was
quickly abolished and replaced by meter charging when it
was discovered that some folk were using it to replace
fires and candles!
Then, Tragedy...
With over 2000 new houses completed by the start of World
War Two, tragedy struck. Over TWO nights in 1941 over 35
percent of all burgh houses were destroyed or heavily
damaged during the
Clydebank Blitz, and Clydebank was
back where it began in 1918, however the devastation and
subsequent regeneration were to leave their mark indelibly
on Clydebank and its' people forever.
After the War
Once peace was declared, Local and National Government set
about the reconstruction of the Blitzed towns and cities -
of which Clydebank was but one. The Blitz in Clydebank was
truly devastating, leaving the town with little choice but
to literally rebuild and renew itself. This renewal process
took many years, and had great effects on local
Shipbuilding, Singer's Sewing Machine Factory and other
local businesses.
Walk before we run
Given the widespread housing damage (only seven houses were
undamaged, out of a total of 12,000!) the council had a
huge job on its hands. A complete redevelopment plan,
covering the whole town, was prepared. The plan called for
new houses, schools, shopping facilities and community
centres to be built on the outskirts of the town, while the
central area was to be rebuilt and restructured.
During the Second World War permission had been granted to
build around 500 houses in the Whitecrook area. By 1948 the
building work was complete, alongwith around 2,000
temporary homes elsewhere in the Burgh - all part of the
process of rehousing the estimated 48,000 local refugees.
A proposed new development near to Faifley farm was given
the go-ahead following an extension to the burgh in 1947.
An area covering 600 acres was allocated to the Burgh
council, and building took place almost immediately.
Over 600 houses in Livingstone street were planned to be
built by the SSHA. The council had also started building in
the areas of Overtoun Road and Drumry. Without a doubt, the
house rebuilding process was off to a great start!
Over the next few years the areas of Whitecrook and Drumry
were completed, providing some 2,000 new homes in the
Burgh. Focus now turned to other areas needing redeveloped,
this time North Mountblow and the Faifley scheme.
"The Faifley"
The housing built in the Faifley area was of the 3/4
apartment type, three storeys high. By building these homes
in a fairly dense layout, the council were able to reduce
the waiting lists dramatically - ideal some said, others
were not so sure.
By moving people from the centre of Clydebank out to the
new estates, the council were then able to demolish the
slums and substandard houses that were once the heart of
the town.
Rebuilding the heart of the town
Many of the badly damaged tenements along Dumbarton Road
were demolished, leaving those still standing with
dampness, leaking roofs and many defects that had yet to be
repaired.
The council proposed to modernise the remaining tenements,
rather than totally rebuild. This proposal was not repeated
elsewhere in Scotland, Clydebank again leading the way.
We're comin' home!
From the end of the Second World War until the mid 950's
Clydebank a steady stream of wartime refugees returned to
the town. Over the next twenty years, the population
started to spread sharply outwards towards Dalmuir,
Parkhall, Mountblow and Kilbowie. The greatest growth in
population expansion was to the Hardgate area, which
witnessed over 100% growth from 1960 until 1970.
So, is everyone leaving then?
In short no, while the population in Central Clydebank
fell, the population in the outer parts of the Burgh
actually increased significantly. Large scale
re-development of the Central are meant that many families
were displaced to Whitecrook, Linnvale and Drumry while the
work was underway.
Re-building a town
The dramatic building programmes in Hardgate and Duntocher
by Wimpey in the late 1960's and early 1970's saw huge
swathes of former greenbelt land given over to the building
of 1,000 private houses. Known affectionately as "spam
valley", the Wimpey estate brought many new people to the
area, and also provided essential housing to second
generation families in the Clydebank area.
Let's cut corners and save money
The Housing Acts of the 1950's and 1960's increased the
subsidies available to local authorities to build houses in
blocks of flats more than six storeys hugh. The Scottish
Office in turn encouraged the adoption of new building
techniques such as pre-fabrication. Local authorities leapt
at the chance to build housing faster and cheaper, or so
they thought....
A general lack of funding also necessitated cutting
corners, which has been regretted ever since. A large
number of multi-storey flats were built in Dalmuir in the
late 1960's using just such techniques and cutting of
corners. These flats encountered various problems such as
malfunctioning of lifts, claustrophobia experienced by many
tennents and often congestion of properties.
Only after thinking about the strategy many years later did
local town planners opt to build lower height, lower
density housing in preference to the "high flats" seen in
the 1960's.
Rebuilding the heart of Clydebank
In 1970 nearly £20 million was earmarked to redevelop the
area between Livingstone Street, Miller Street, Dumbarton
Road and Kilbowie Road - known as the Kilbowie CDA. The
plan called for 800 new homes, thousands of square feet of
retail space, along with public and community buildings.
The idea was to have the central business district
contained within this area, linked between the train
stations of Singer and Clydebank Central.
What about Transport in the town?
One of the key parts to the successful rebuilding programme
was improving the transport system in the town. The last
Tram ran in 1962, and the Clyde & Forth Canal shut to
shipping in 1963. This left large gaps in what transport
infrastructure was left after the war.
A plan was formulated in 1969 to assist the congestion in
the centre of town (around the Kilbowie Road/Dumbarton Road
junction). There were also plans to improve connections to
the rest of the outlying areas.
The changes were proposed to take place in three phases :
Phase 1 was to include the Erskine Bridge, the Great
Western Road Expressway and Clydeside Expressway as far as
the town boundaries.
Phase 2 was to extend the Clydeside Expressway go up
Kilbowie Road to a proposed Lomond Motorway - never
completed.
Phase 3 was for the Great Western Expressway to be extended
from the top of Kilbowie road east along the top of the
town, running just south of the Goodyear Tyre Factory.
Phases 1 and 3 were the only ones' to go ahead in full,
with little major change since. Who knows what the future
holds.....