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Springburn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Springburn is an area in the north of the Scottish city of Glasgow.
Springburn developed from a small hamlet at the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the mid-century, an influx of tradesmen enlarged the village, and with the arrival of the railway the village became a parish in its own right.
It has a strong historical link to heavy industry, particularly railways, with the manufacturing of locomotives. In the past, Springburn produced 25% of all the trains in the world, thanks to its many train workshops.
These included Cowlairs, Walter Neilson's Hyde Park Works, Sharp Stewart and Company's Atlas works, Eastfield and the Caledonian Railway's St. Rollox works. Later it became the headquarters of the North British Locomotive Company. Also in Springburn was Eastfield running shed, built by the North British Railway. St. Rollox became the largest works, and is the only one still in operation today, although it is currently an Alstom repair and maintenance yard, rather than a manufacturing facility.
The highest point in Springburn and of the City of Glasgow is its famous park on Balgrayhill, donated to Glasgow by James Reid, a business colleague of Walter Neilson, in 1892; a statue in honour of Reid was erected in the park in 1903.
The old suburb of Springburn was virtually obliterated by the redevelopment of the area in the 1960s. Selected as one of Glasgow's "Comprehensive Development Areas", Springburn became a sequence of housing estates and a major dual carriageway, the A803 (originally designed to be the northern link to the aborted Glasgow Inner Ring Road) transformed the area completely. The handful of Victorian villas which remain around Balgrayhill gives only a glimpse of what had gone before. The vision remained incomplete, and by the mid-1970s Springburn had become one of Glasgow's most notorious areas, exacerbated by decaying housing. Since then, substantial activity has ensured a degree of regeneration for the area, but Springburn's core social problems remain.
Springburn is served by Springburn railway station, offering regular commuter services on the North Clyde and Cumbernauld lines of the Glasgow suburban rail network. The area is also served by numerous bus routes.
Many people from Springburn have left their mark on the world, some of more the famous being the singer Sydney MacEwan, broadcasters and writers Tom Weir and his sister Molly, the railway author John Thomas, and the politician John McAllion.
Springburn's current MP, Michael Martin, is Speaker of the House of Commons.
- Lowe, J.W., (1989) British Steam Locomotive Builders, Guild Publishing
- Thomas, John, (1964) The Springburn Story: The History of the Scottish Railway Metropolis, David & Charles
- Weir, M., (1970) Shoes Were For Sunday, Hutchinson
- Williamson, Elizabeth, et al (1990) The Buildings of Scotland: Glasgow, Penguin
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