Braehead Farm

It's well known that before the Braehead Shopping Centre was built, the site was occupied in part and most recently by a power station.  Less well documented is that to the east of the power station site stood Braehead Farm.  This was just off of what was referred to as Renfrew Road in the 1890s and at that time there was an additional dwelling place referred to as The Lodge.

Maps from this amazing resource (click here) provided by the National Library of Scotland, photos from Britain from Above (click here).

It can be seen in this map from 1895:

The river runs from bottom right to top left. The earliest industrial development around Scotstoun is shown on the right.  Braehead Farm and the Lodge are centre left of the map.

By 1909, industrial development was eating into the farm lands.  The Lodge still stands on Renfrew Road but the new geography is in the shape of railway lines linking industrial sites to the main towns in the area:

The Lodge was now cut off from the farm except by crossing the bridge over the railway cutting.

Note Deanside Station on the Glasgow and Renfrew District Railway opened on 1st June 1903 and closed on 1st January 1905! (click for 1952 photo)

From 1928 we have the only photo I can find of the lodge on Renfrew Road.  Here is the wider photo:

King George V Dock is very evidently being built to the right of the photo.  The Lodge is ringed in red, top left.  Zooming in:

The Lodge is towards the bottom left, and the farm is at the end of the avenue of trees leading up and right from the Lodge, on the right just below centre.

Using Google Earth, this is my attempt to reproduce the 1928 view:

The M8 evidently cuts across the bottom left corner.  The large building with the bright blue walls just the left of centre is Ikea.  The original shopping centre is in the top left with Marks and Spencer's nearest to us.  The approximate site of the Lodge is again ringed in red.

Looking at a modern map:

What was Renfrew Road is now Kings Inch Drive (lower half of map to the right) and then Old Govan Road (to the left).  The Lodge was approximately at the junction where the name changes and the road marked in dark blue comes in from the bottom of the photo, this being the road from the M8 at Junction 25a.  Note the railway line is still marked just below the word "Clinic" in red at the bottom left - this can be compared to the 1909 map shown earlier.

Finally here is an aerial photo from 1951 - the Lodge has now gone and the farm is overshadowed by the recent building of the power station:

It's not clear when the farm was demolished but an archaeological survey in the 1990s said the remains of the farm were only a single course high (one brick?) and there was no sign of any out-buildings.