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.....