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The Canal Bridge, Temple

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In a previous post I described the site of Temple Saw Mills ( link ) which was on the land to the west of Bearsden Road, between the Forth Clyde Canal and the railway line.  As I researched this I became interested in the bridge over the canal which is so wide and straight today that you barely notice it, but it has at least two surprises. The first surprise is that when it as built, the canal was very much a working waterway and not all canal boat were barges with engines; some still had masts and these had to be allowed access.  So the bridge is actually a bascule bridge (to my simple understanding, a drawbridge with a counterweight).  Here it is open: As we can see the gasometers in the background, the photo must have been taken looking east, and hence the counterweight mechanism is under the south approach to the bridge. Gongs and lights warned motorists it was about to open, and electrically operated gates at each end shut the road.  It took 115 seconds for the ...
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Temple Saw Mill

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You'll be familiar with the drive from Anniesland towards Bearsden, passing Morrisons on your right, the Shell garage on the left, then going over the canal bridge (so wide you barely notice it IS a bridge).  So does anything in this photo ring a bell? Maybe if I show you this comparison? Or how about the view along the canal: This was the Temple Saw Mill, opened in 1874.  Wood was brought in by boat along the canal, stored and cut and shaped for onward sale.  It was owned by Robinson, Dunn and Co., established in 1838, and they had another sawmill in Partick - if you came off the Clydeside Expressway to get onto Dumbarton Road you might know there is a Burger King and Starbucks (21st Century landmarks!) - it was facing this on the other side of Castlebank Street.  Around 1932 the company decided to close the Partick mill (in 1933) and build their company office by the Temple mill and this was a building you might recognise: Here's an advert for their work from the e...
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Glenburn Street, Maryhill, 14th March 1941

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  I am indebted to Jeanette Burns for bringing this incident to my attention and to Michelle Blunn for supplying further information; Michelle, in turn thanks the Twitter account Target Clydeside (Marc Patrick Conaghan) for supplying information to her. On the night of 13th - 14th March the Luftwaffe targeted Glasgow and Clydebank with 439 planes sent to the target.  They flew a common course, probably up the east coast of England and then turning in site of the Firth of Forth, and again over the clearly visible Loch Lomond, so they were flying in from the north or north-east.  They did not fly as massed formations, which would have been impossible at night without collisions, but individually or in very small groups. So how did the crew of one of the last - if not THE last - of the 439 planes come to bomb Glenburn Street, on the very northern edge of Glasgow, with no military significance.  I imagine local people speculated they must have been aiming for the factori...
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Kilmun Street, night of 14-15 March 1941

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I was studying this photo from 1939, looking north across Dawsholm gas works and chemical works.  My clumsy attempt to match it using Google Earth is below: To try to orientate you, you can just see the most westerly of the pools at Maryhill Locks on the right and the new houses in the middle on the right are on the corner of Maryhill Road and Cowal Street.  Maryhill Road runs from the right hand side just above the centre up to the left, crossing the railway at Maryhill Station, then heading diagonally up and left to the Garscube Campus. Then I realised the building on the extreme right of the 1939 photo was Celtic Street Tram Depot: The tram depot is on the near side of Maryhill Road, with the cantilevered roof.  To the right there are tenements (still standing, at the traffic lights in modern terms) but I was interested in the tenements on the other side of the street This is a map of the area in 1910: Here is the same area in 1933: And again in 1938: My interest was t...
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