South Garrowhill Street Names

South Garrowhill Street Names

As you will see, the following information comes courtesy of Thomas Hamilton's BornNBredNBaillieston webpage.

As you will see this information is as a result of Mr Hamilton's own investigations and reflect his own opinion.

If anyone has a different view on the origin of our street names, then please get in touch and we will post these too.

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The theme for the naming of the streets appears to be local woodland features and old cottages that where in this area. Since there is such a strong local theme it was probably the councillors of the day who suggested them. The councillors then may have been David H. Jagger, who was both a Tory councillor for Garrowhill and the rep for Henry Boot who built the Ladyhill estate . The south Garrowhill Ladyhill estate was originally the property of Scott-Maxwell as is shown on the original plans for Garrowhill "The Garden Estate".

Ladyhill Drive: There was a Ladyhill cottage that sat in the wood approximately halfway between Old Wood Road and Glasgow Road. The name Ladyhill seems to appear across mainland Britain and Ireland on the sites of of old Medieval hillforts, and the 1950 aerial photo of the Ladyhill area does show a ghost shape in the field. This type of fort would have been the Norman Motte and Bailly type, which is not unlike the shape of a female breast with a circular raised shape with another raised shape inside. The is in my opinion no other logical explanation for calling all these sites "Ladyhill". Don't forget we have a breast shaped mountain named "The Pap of Glencoe"

Rowandale Avenue: There was a Rowandale Cottage situated here. Where the name Rowandale originated from will probably never be known. There may have been Rowan trees on the old Ladyhill part of the Maxwell estate.

Willowdale Crescent & Gardens: A Willow-Oak still stands at the south end of this estate. Willow is a name that is applied to streets where a stream used to run nearby, and this was the case here. Old maps from the 1850?s show a stream or burn rising in the Baulks and following the Old Wood Road to a point where it met the burn from the Maxwell estate. I believe the stream still runs underground and that is why there is such a large gap between the road and the hedges on the Garrowhill side of  Old Wood Road.

  Rosedale Drive: This whole estate was once enclosed by Hawthorn hedgerows. Hawthorn is a member of the Rosewood tree family.

The suffix "Dale" usually relates to south sloping land, this is the case with South Garrowhill, and gives good reason why they used the term.

      This is a curious mix of trees, had they wanted to there were more common species of tree in the wood than Ash, Oak and Fir, there was Sycamore, Chestnut, Lime and further up at Ladyhill there was Elm, Larch, Birch, Beech, Poplar and really old Whitethorn trees, which are of the Rosewood Family. The wood was a planted wood and not of ancient origin, the age of the trees at about 200 to 250 years old means that Major James Maxwell probably planted them. This which would have coincided with the massive tree planting campaign across Scotland at this time called the Policies, where realising the devastation that the tree population had suffered. They set up "The Policies" where by common agreement they would plant trees and protect them by law. Many, if not all of the old trees in Baillieston and Garrowhill are protected under this old act.

        Another curious aspect is the choice of names for the Ladyhill streets; the timbers referred to are the woods used in the construction of chariot wheels  Briton or possibly Roman chariot wheels  Rosewood hub; Willow spokes and Ash or Rowan rim. Is this just coincidental?