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Garrowhill Street Names
Garrowhill Street Names As you will see this information comes courtesy of Thomas Hamilton's BornNBredNBaillieston web page. This article is the result of Mr Hamilton's own investigations and reflects his own opinion on the origin of our street names.
If anyone has other views on their origin we would be delighted to post these too.
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Most people have credited J. Scott Maxwell and Charles and Henry Boot with the choice of the street names of Garrowhill. I believe that is only partially the case. I believe some of the names go as far back as Major James Maxwell, John Maxwell, John Scott, later to be John Maxwell Scott-Maxwell?s father in law, and Garrowhill the Garden Estate was his vision, although implemented by Scott-Maxwell , it was more likely the brain child of his father-in-law John Maxwell, who made it a condition of his will that John Scott take on the name "John Maxwell Scott-Maxwell". This was not an uncommon practice amongst the landed gentry back then, where the family name was preserved. As to the origin of the name Garrowhill there has been much speculation, and I don't think any of the groupd searching the origin have found it. Many streets in Garrowhill are named after places in Yorkshires North Riding, coincidentally there is a Garrow Hill in North Yorkshire. There is a "Red Book" in Baillieston library which gives a view of where some on the street names came from. This book was handed in anonymously to the library as part of the bicentennial compilations of 1981. We can't even begin to guess who made the compilation, some say it was one of the Maxwell's, some say it was the Boot's, or perhaps the first Councillor and Henry Boot representative D.H.Jagger, the truth is no one knows. I originally thought the book was of some worth, I think it was up to a point, then it was misleading, and it could have been deliberate to put guys like me off the scent. The book just generalised without any supporting evidence to back it up whatsoever. I have the book scanned and on file and will be presenting it simultaneous with this narrative. Here are the streets of Garrowhill and their origins. First in brief with the red books view where applicable in brackets I will give the overview of the street names, then drop further down into history. Note that the "Red Book" did not cover all streets. Local names by LCC Planning. Barrachnie Road / Drive / Crescent: Named after the old area and hamlet of Barrachnie. 1. Older ones quite deliberately call it "Brochney", and it Gaelic this translates into dwelling in the forest, or Broch on the island, similar to Orkney, "Island of seals". 2. In Old Scots, which is a sort of Brythonic / Gaelic (Briton / Picto-Scot) it can translate into Barrach-nie, which is quite a specific name Clearing or Island enclosed by a dense Birchwood thicket.There is an area called Birchwood just west on Barrachnie at the bottom of the hill as you come to Barrachnie Cross. I actually believe it is both of these, and the site of the broch or dwellings was in Garrowhill Park as Barrachnie East and West are shown to be there on old maps. For Weirwood will take each name option in turn. Weirwood Avenue: Named after Weirwood Park which sat behind the Barrachnie Inn. This is yet another tough nut to crack. It would be so easy just to say "Named after Weirwood Park" and just walk away from it, but in my mind it solves nothing. Was it the name of a person? There are no records I can find for someone called Weirwood owning land in this area. Was it the name of a land feature(s) possibly? If so I can narrow this down to two possible origins, and that might have been the planning criteria, dual origins. What we should remember also is that History professors and people in that league deal with these matters of naming things, this is why many of us take so long to find the origins of names; it has been an area where academic snobbery has prevailed, and I believe deliberate secrecy to stop people treasure hunting. 1. Weir is an old Scots name for War, could there have been a medium sized skirmish in the area. There are many areas around here that have not been built on, and there seems no logical reason to some of the patterns, the Maxwell estate being the best example, have we ancient war graves in the area? 2. This will sound completely ridiculous, but bear with me and let it settle in your mind before you toss it out. One of the possibilities for Weirwood was a Birchwood forest, and we also know there was a stream running down from Garrowhill Park (Springhill). I believe this was a large stream from around 1900 backward in time, and all the way back probably to the last Ice Age. This Stream ran from around the area of the old BJS School and ran along following the route of Weirwood Avenue. I was joined by another stream from Garrowhill Park. The little burn that we remember ran round the Maxwell estate, but this one filled a pond at Henry Boots offices / Garrowhil Bricky then overflowed west through Barrachnie Cross and down the hill to the Tollcross Burn at Sandyhills. This is clearly shown on Blaeus map as shown below, not exact by any means, by there was a steam running through that area. Weir suggests just that a weir in the stream, but what for? Gold was sought by all the ancients, whether that be, Picts, Britons, Scots and the Romans, in fact it was one of the main reasons the Roman conquered. The gold was extracted by stream by building weirs in the streams and then lying sheep fleeces across it to catch the particles of gold. They would then pick the gold out of the fleece; this is where the origin of "The Golden Fleece" originated. It is high speculative I know, but this practice was carried out, that much is known. Weirwood Avenue looking west - and east Gordon Avenue: Gordon Avenue and Weirwood Avenue join at Hillsborough Road and at first glance spell out the name Gordon Weirwood, however many searches on this name turn up absolutely nothing, which is unusual, in my opinion it relates to something else. There was an old encampment in Garrowhill, it was unusually spelt as "Incampment", this is an unusual spelling, with an "I" instead of an "E", however I have been advised this is a Romanisation of the word by substituting the E for a Roman 1 "I" . An old record of the Maxwell family tells of Archibald Coats being held for ransom by the highland army in 1746 as they marched in two columns to the Battle of Kilsyth. These two columns might be represented by Weirwood and Maxwell Avenue as Coats Crescent does link to two streets. Glenduffhill Road: Glenduffhill is where Barlanark was built. The Gaelic translation of Dull is "dark" Glen in the dark hill? Don't forget we have a Blackhill to the east and a Blackhill to the west. Locals in this area call the Tollcross Burn the Glendy Burn, I always thought it was the Glendy Burn and other from Barrachnie calls it the "B" Burn. I believe in our area the name "Hill" signified Mottes, raised earth watchtowers inside small enclosures. Down at Daldowie crematorium there is what I believe to be a man made Motte called Chuckie Hill, which is aptly named. On the south side of it there is an unusual twin sandstone set of booths with ornate patterned carving in the stonework, I believe they are confessional or places of reflection for monks. If this is the case they are Norman and date back to at least the 14th century. Other settlements I believe were Greenoakhill which was also a Bronze Age burial site with standing stones, these ancient stones can be view at the council workshops garden which is on the site of the old Daldowie house. Viewfield Drive / Avenue: Named after the Viewfield House that was built on top of Glenduffhill. Garrowhill Road / Drive: Garrowhill is a name that appeared around when house was built in the early 1800's. The area where it was built was originally known as Easter Barrachnie. I believe there was something in Garrowhill Park, the shape of the road in it marks out a circular shape that I have seen in other historic sites areas. Since the house did not have Garrett towers I believe it reasonable there was a garrison on the high point of the park. My research is ongoing in this area, and a key task is that I measure the diameter of the circular road at the top of the park and compare this with findings from other locations. Garrowhill may well have been a Garrison that was part of what I firmly believe was a large Roman fort complex centred in the field where Bannerman School is. Springhill Road: The top end of Garrowhill near the Edinburgh Road was/is known as Springhill. It was also the name of the Mineral Railway Network to the north of Baillieston that ran to Hallhill Basin on the Monklands Canal. There is a natural spring at the top of Springhill road. Nurseries Road : Site of the old Findlay's Nurseries
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