Burnbrae: The Dye Works and The House (updated 2pm on 11 August)
Burnbrae, as we know, is located on the Milngavie Road out of Bearsden. Craighdu Burn, which runs in between McDonalds and Pure Gym, is the boundary between Bearsden and Milngavie. Thus the Burnbrae pub and restaurant and McDonalds are in Bearsden but Pure Gym and Kelvin Timber are in Milngavie.
Going back to the 1920s, this would have felt semi-rural compared to today, as the following photo illustrates:
I think this was taken from just north of the junction with Kilmardinny Avenue looking towards Milngavie. The road still has a slight bend in it but it is hardly noticeable in a car. The monorail is visible in the middle distance (see my post here). Just to the left we see a building end on and behind that is today's Kelvin Timber building.
Going back before that we can get an idea of how the area looked when New Kilpatrick was originally becoming established at and to the south of today's Bearsden Cross (see my post here) by using material from this website:
Burnbrae, New
Kilpatrick Parish, 1860
This Name applies to a
superior dwelling to which a Farm Steading is adjacent, and is generally - both
steading & dwelling, described as the property of Burnbrae.
The occupiers make use some[times] of the distinctions of Burnbrae House & Burnbrae Farm but these are not more than distinctive titles of their own, which are unnecessary in this case. "Burnbrae" is the property of Mr. McAllister Douglas.
Burnbrae Dye Works
A small establishment
for dyeing Yarn at which about 30 persons are employed. Some little printing of
the Yarn is done here also, but not generally, the trade he[re is] for yarn
dyeing. The Tenant is not desirous of having Printing mentioned in the description
of the place. It is the property of Mr McAll[ister] Douglas. The Name has not
been written to the works as it may be [now].
P. Nelson, Tenant;
William Cumming, Manager
Just to the east of the loch is a farm - I judge that to be roughly where the small area of hardstanding allows parking for a few cars off of today's Kilmardinny Avenue. There is an other farm at Lower Kimardinny just across the Milngavie Road (no Douglas Park Golf Club at that time!)
But our interest is in Burnbrae and this is visible at the top of the map. We can zoom in for more detail:
The Dye Works occupy the site of the modern day McDonald's and the Burnbrae pub/restaurant. The burn has been partly diverted to form a dam roughly on the site of the modern Premier Inn and there is a second pond across the Milngavie Road (now a car parking for the Alexander Grove flats). Note Burnbrae House just to the south, drawn rather implausibly in two parallel lines (did they live in a corridor?)
By 1896, the dye works had reached their full extent with buildings extending westwards, back up the burn and also across the road, including the only surviving structure, the aforementioned Kelvin Timber building. Both the dam and the pond have gone. Note there is a dedicated branch line coming off of the railway from Milngavie to Hillfoot specifically to serve the dyeworks.
Burnbrae House is now a more plausible shape (in my opinion!) and the road just to the east of the house corresponds to the line of the modern cul-de-sac Burnbrae Avenue.
I've included a map from 1914 but really only to show how little had changed:
This map is more explicit in naming sluices and there is a new dam further back up the burn on the left of the map.
But by 1938, almost all the buildings to the west of the road had gone and the large building on the east of the road was the omnibus depot (which can be seen in the first photo on this post):
We can also see Burnbrae Nursery (a garden centre in modern terms, not an early years centre).
By 1966, there are buildings along the burn, marked as Burnbrae Garage. Assuming the 1938 map was accurate then they may have been built on the foundations of the old dye works. The Burnbrae Hotel is on the site of the modern Premier Inn, seemingly accessed from Burnbrae Avenue rather than direct from Milngavie Road.
The other change is that houses are encroaching on the north and west of the map.
Finding more about the dye works is not easy and I would be delighted for more knowledgeable readers to fill in the gaps. They were started around the 1840s. In the 1860s it was owned by McAllister Douglas (see the quote at the start of this post). It was the major employer in Milngavie at one stage. I am no expert on the process of dyeing or the economics of the industry but if you want to know more then West Dunbartonshire Council has produced an account (click here) - note in particular the section on pages 12 through 14 on the working conditions.
It then passed to Alexander Reid and Sons, Dyers - by 1900 the sole partner in this firm was Thomas Reid who had occupied Kimardinny House from 1880.
This is Thomas Reid, owner of Burnbrae Dye Works as it expanded; I have taken this from an excellent website which you can access by clicking here. Please visit, it has lots of pictures of Kilmardinny House and Thomas's family and is well worth a look.
Around 1901-1902 the United Turkey Red Company Limited bought the works following Thomas Reid's death at Kilmardinny House on 5th July 1900. (The United Turkey Red archives are held by Glasgow University, should you wish to find out more.)
The works closed at the end of the First World War and the branch line closed in 1926 (source), leaving the station yard for Mr Bennie to build his prototype monorail.
At its peak, the works looked like this (thanks to SCRAN for the image):
It looks to be a sketch, so given the lack of traffic, I imagine it to date from the late 19th Century. Here is the best modern match to the view I can produce using Google Street View (the photo is actually from 2018):
Looking at the SCRAN image it is very tempting to see the modern pub/restaurant as a surviving building of the works but the maps above tell us that is not the case and the current building is at most around 50 years old.
Burnbrae House was located on the very northern tip of Burnbrae Avenue, the unmetalled track north of Mosshead Road:
For much, possibly all, of its life it was owned by the Douglas family so the people mentioned below were tenants. While the dye works were active it seems to have been a perk of the job of manager.
The house is in the first valuation toll that is available online in 1855:
I find this very difficult to read but I believe the top row refers to the dye works, the second row refers to the house and the third row refers to the farm. William M Douglas was the owner and Alexander Mackenzie; he was still there in 1865.
By 1875 the tenant was Donald Carruthers, he was still there in 1885; by 1891 Donald had died and he had been succeeded as manager of the works and as tenant by his son John. John lived in the house with his widowed mother and his sister Mary (whose death at a ripe old age was announced in the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald of 18 February 1950):
In the census returns for 1901 and 1911 the house is described as having eight rooms, sufficient for two adults (John and his wife), four children, and two live-in servants.
John raised his family there until around 1912, when it was taken over by Thomas Clegg, John's successor as manager; he remained until around 1918.
In 1920 the property was owned by Elizabeth Bryce Douglas (as was the neighbouring farm). From the 1921 Census this was Robert S McMurray, clerk and bookkeeper employed by United Turkey Red Dyers (although we know that by this time the works were on the point of closing). Robert was aged 35 and living alone in a house described as having nine rooms. He stayed until at least 1925,
In the later 1920s through to the 1940s (at least) it was occupied by Alexander Davidson. He earned a living as a gardener and selling plants from an outbuilding that served as a nursery:
He was there until at least 1942. The house was still standing at the time of the most recent map at the start of this post, in 1966, at which point (assuming it was the original structure) it must have been at least 110 years old.
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