Having described Dalsholm Paper Mill at the north end and Dawsholm Gasworks at the south end, this post briefly describes other industrial sites along the rest of Dalsholm Road.
I’ve chosen to start with the modern view and then to go backwards in time.
So Switchback Road/Bearsden Road is just out of shot to the left and Maryhill Road is just out of shot to the right. The Forth and Clyde Canal is at the bottom of the view. Dawsholm Road runs north-south down the centre of the photo, the park in the top left, the recycling centre in the bottom left, and Cullens Sustainable Packaging to the right. Note also the houses to the north of Cowal Road in the bottom-right.
Here is a similar view on a 1949 map:
The changes are mainly on the right (east) of Dawsholm Road, with chemical works occupying the Cullens site. Note the gasworks on the land now used by Cowal Road and Millhouse Drive.
This photo is from 1939 but seems to be little changed from the above map (© Copyright: HES (Aerofilms Collection)):
This 1939 photo shows Dalsholm Road on the left with a car about halfway along and heading for the paper mill which is the white building at the top of the photo just to the right of centre. The rest of what we can see is the chemical works, with the tip of one chimney of the gasworks just visible right at the bottom, just the right of centre.
The third view is from 1911:
On the left (west) side of Dawsholm Road, the future site of the recycling centre is a chemical works. To the left (east) of the road, Garscube Chemical Works shares the Cullens site with Kelvinside Brickworks.
Next we go back to 1896:
This looks quite different. To the left (east) of the road, we can see Garscube Colliery in the top left, just south of the reservoirs that were part of the water management system for the paper mill. There is also a rail line to the colliery, marked “Mineral Railway”, connecting to the main railway sidings – if you go back to the 2025 view, the footpath into the park from Dalsholm Road seems to follow the line of this railway. Note the railway is marked as going under the road – given that the ground is higher on the east side, this must hva emeant quite a steep run down into a cutting coming from the colliery.
Still on the west side, we can see that the modern recycling centre is on the site of Dawsholm Farm.
On the east side, the chemical works are confined to the south end of the road. The area occupied by Cullens is part brickworks and partly the Glasgow Portland Cement Works.
Now we go back to 1860:
Unfortunately for the mapmaker the works were on a ‘sticky-out’ bit of land from the area covered by the main map and had to be put on a small inset but from the curve of the river it is plain enough where it was located: under the modern Cowal Road just west of the bridge and down into Blairbuie Drive.
Dawsholm Printworks was started in 1750 and was a significant step in the career of a Glasgow merchant, William Stirling, a name you may recognise from Stirling’s Library in Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow – now GOMA (link). He had previously imported cloth (which was higher quality than anything that could be produced in the UK at the time) and had it printed in London but Dawsholm was his first industrial venture in Scotland (link – while this is about another man, John Matheson, it contains important information about William Stirling in paragraphs 6 and 9).
By 1770, Stirling had moved on to the Vale of Leven because the two features that made Dawsholm attractive, pure water and cheap labour, were even more abundant there. The works then had a succession of owners, roughly one per decade, until Glasgow Corporation purchased the land (compulsorily?) in the early 1870s and the print works closed for good. The most notable of these owners in terms of local interest was Walter Weir who left Dawsholm to start the Allender printworks in Milngavie around 1822.
This only partly covers the Dalsholm Road site but it is important because it shows Dawsholm Printworks. The credit for this map is with paul4jags and was posted in his Twitter feed (link). Paul also runs The Glasgow Punter website where, among other great pieces, he has told the story of George Millar, the Maryhill Martyr, who worked at Dawsholm Printworks (link).
Finally, we can look at Roy’s military map, dating from around 1750 (credit for map to Maryhill Burgh Halls Blog):
This shows Dawsholm Farm and Dawsholm mill (i.e. the paper mill) – note this is now before the canal extension was built.
My interpretation of the history of the area starts with the people who inhabited the land a thousand years ago or more – it is reported that in the early 19th Century a farmer removing earth for top-soil from a mound on Dawsholm Farm found stone steps inside. Enthusiastic amateur archaeologists excavated the mound and found armour and a spear (current whereabouts unknown). But this reminds me that the industrial history I am describing is from (at most) the last 250 years and often the last 150 years; the land was inhabited for a good few years before that.
The oldest industrial feature is Dawsholm Farm, but judging from the map it was small (only one building is marked) and apart from the archaeological find there is no other mention of it in current online records.
Next to appear was the paper mill at Dalsholm, sometimes dated to the 1780s but probably older (it’s on the Roy military map from 30 years earlier). The selection of the site was probably influenced by the flow of water in the river plus the ability to manage water in reservoirs and a channel of water as well as a weir.
Despite the extension of the Forth and Clyde Canal through the area, the next development took until the 1860s when a pit was dug and was named Garscube Colliery. (I suspect this name had previously been applied to a pit less than a mile away in Netherton, but this had recently been renamed.) A mineral railway was dug from the colliery down the hill and underneath Dalsholm Road, presumably to connect to the railway system for onward transportation.
The industrial development that changed the whole area was the building, independently, of two gas works in the early 1870s, one at Temple south of the canal and the other at Dawsholm, north of the canal (sited either side of the modern Cowal Road).
Gas was produced by baking coal, leaving a variety of potential by-products to be reworked, therefore chemical works were often found alongside gasworks. Initially the chemical works at Dawsholm were quite small and was located close to the modern roundabout of Cowal Road and Cleveden Road. As the gasworks increased in the 1890s, so the chemical works (processing the byproducts of the gas production process) expanded across Dalsholm Road, taking over the site of the farm.
Also around the 1890s, a cement works was built on the east side of Dalsholm Road, possibly using waste products coming out of the colliery. Around the same time a small brickworks was established close by, although the co-location of brick and cement works has no rationale obvious to me.
The colliery had a life of less than fifty years, closing soon after 1900, and the cement works closed soon after. The brickworks continued but the chemical works expanded first onto the site of the cement works, and finally took over from the brickworks, maybe around 1920.
Just to remind you, the above is not an official history, it is my surmise based on map evidence in particular; I would welcome help from anyone who has better access to documents..
In modern day terms, the colliery is now parkland. The farm is under the recycling centre. The cement and brick works, as well as the later and larger chemical works were on the site now occupied by Cullen Sustainable Packaging and the other smaller companies between the road and the River Kelvin. The gasworks is the site of Cowal Road and the modern houses on Millhouse Drive.
Here’s a little more information about each site:
Brickworks – Tracking the history at the Dawsholm site is not straightforward because the name on the 1911 map, Garscube Brick Works, is very similar to a site at Netherton, the Garscube Brick and Tile Works. There is an excellent website dedicated to the history of bricks and brickmaking in Scotland, the link here takes you to the Dawsholm page. On this page the first report of the works is 1893 (one chimney, one building and four kilns) with the last in 1906. I can add that the Garscube Brick Company, probably the owners of the works, were voluntarily wound-up in 1906.
It was subsequently named Kelvinside Brick Works – this link to the specialist website covers this, but if you read the entries for 1875, 1894 and 1911 you will see that while the name is the same, three different locations are described, one on Great Western Road, one in Crossloan Road and one at Dawsholm. Fortunately Dawsholm is the last of these and the final entry is the sale of the site in 1913. I suspect the chemical works may have taken over the ground around this time.
In short, there was probably brickworking at Dawsholm for around 20 years, from 1893 to 1913.
Glasgow Portland Cement Works
This link is to a page listing cement works in the UK since 1895 with a commentary on which type of cement they made. There is no map evidence of the works before 1895. It probably made cement from lime and slag, and was up for sale in a record of 14th December 1909 so it lasted for even less time than the brickworks.
Chemical Works
By-products of gas production from coal include a mixture of tar and ammoniacal liquor; this would be put into tanks to separate. Ammonia used for fertiliser, tar and bitumen used for road surfacing. Creosote was also produced.
Other by-products were used in making plastic, disinfectants and sheep-dip. Some materials were sent on to Provan where the chemical works adjoining the gasworks was the most sophisticated in the city and could produce specialist chemicals.
In 1872 an article in the Glasgow Herald said: “In connection with the Dawsholm establishment, a chemical work has been erected for utilising the tar, ammoniacal liquor, &c, produced in the manufacture of gas. It occupies a site to the north of the Gas Works and has been let to Messrs Peter Lawson & Sons of Edinburgh. It is at present in course of being fitted up; and we believe they will be ready to begin operations in the course of a few weeks …”
The works seem to have been leased to different operating companies, with quite a turnover. As noted above the lease was to Peter Lawson in 1872, West of Scotland Chemical Works in 1878, Arrol and Co in 1884, Robinson & Hunter in 1903.
In 1900 a new tar distilling works was added.
In 1915, the works were up for sale (The Scotsman 15th April):
I suspect Glasgow Corporation, owners of the gasworks, took direct control of the site after this. In 1915 the manager of the gasworks was also in charge of the chemical works but by 1919 the chemical works got a separate manager.
Newspaper coverage only extends to reports of fires such as this from 1903 (Dundee Evening Telegraph, 11th February):
Or this from 1936 (Daily Record 11th May):
There were also stories of danger and bravery (Daily Record 12th November 1915):
In 1948 286 people worked there.
In 1959 the works seem to have been owned by Scottish Tar Distillers (from Grace’s Guide):
The chemical works closed in 1964 and by 1970, the site was in ruins, as seen in the photos of Professor John Hume (link). This photo seems to have been taken from the railway bridge at the south end of Dalsholm Road, looking north-east to the ruins:
© Copyright: HES (Papers of Professor John R Hume, economic and industrial historian, Glasgow, Scotland)
Note also the number of sidings where the railway tracks have been lifted.