I cannot muster the least interest in the history of landowning families over the centuries and am not much more interested in where they lived. I’m making an exception for Garscube House partly because it has been demolished (instant appeal!), the site is so accessible, and next year is the 200th anniversary of the rebuilding that produced the structure we see in photographs.
I say “rebuilding” because Garscube House did not spring into existence in 1827. Here is an estate map dated 1807, originally posted by Glasgow City Archives (link):
Look for the buildings coloured red a fraction above the centre of the photo; the bigger square one is Home Farm and the smaller one below it and to the right is the Garscube House of that time. Modern Switchback Road runs past Home Farm on the left and as you follow it north of the Farm, you can see it meeting other roads at Canniesburn Toll.
Moving clockwise, Maryhill Road forms the eastern boundary. In the top right portion, you can see Killermont Bridge over the Kelvin with Garscube Mill and the estate houses at Westend just above that.
In the bottom right you can see some early industrial development: “Paper Mill Land” (Dalshom Paper Mill, which I have covered here) and in the very corner “Bleach and Print Field” (which I have covered here). The fields of Dawsholm Farm cover much of what is now Dawsholm Park.
It’s notable how many farms there were: Netherton Paffle, Temple of Garscube, Netherton, South Westerton and North Westerton can be seen in the south and west of the estate.
If you go back to Home Farm and follow what we now call Switchback Road south, you’ll see that it runs past the south entrance to the estate but then swings east, cutting through what would now be Dawsholm Park and joining Dawsholm Road. This is a reminder Great Western Road was not built until after 1836 so going through Temple and Anniesland was pointless; today’s Maryhill Road was the way into and out of Glasgow.
A brief history of the ownership of the Garscube estate is covered in an appendix at the end of this post. We know very little about the House that existed before 1827 and I am not aware of any pictures. There must have been some: in a speech in 1953 the then Lord Succouth said he had seen one and in the background was a boat with masts and sailed tied up on the Kelvin! (Oban Times, 7th March 1953). I have seen a reference to an 18th century laird dividing his time between Garscube and Edinburgh and some of his household goods travelling by water so I wonder if the Kelvin was navigable up to the canal system.
There was also a suspension bridge across the river, erected in 1818 (The Scotsman 25th September 1968:
(From A Short History of Garscube Estate, Glasgow & Bearsden by George Brady (link))
In 1823 the incumbent (the First Baronet), a lawyer and judge, died and the lands passed to his son, also a lawyer and judge. The son hired an architect named William Burn, one of the top two in Scotland at the time, and a specialist in designing mansions with an Elizabethan style. He was prolific but Garscube is regarded as one of his best.
His brief was for a partial rebuild of the existing house. The architect’s plans are available on the Historic Environment Scotland website (link) – this is the ground floor but the plans for the upper floor can also be seen:
I assume the walls coloured yellow were new and the walls coloured grey represent the existing building that was being retained. In the bottom right corner there is the date “26th Sept 1826”. A month later the house was being partially cleared with a sale of furniture (Glasgow Herald 27th October 1826):
All sources agree the building work was carried out in 1827, which is in keeping with the timescale for a rebuild. Here is the result, photographed 28 years later (1855) seen from the south and across the river:
This map is from 1950 but a comparison with older maps (with slightly less detail) suggests little had changed:
The main entrance was on the north side, suggesting the main driveway was expected to be via the Lodge by Killermont Bridge (initially) or from a now-demolished lodge further down Maryhill Road once the bridge over the river just by the north-east corner of the house had been built. However, the House was built with the south view in mind, the Drawing Room and the Conservatory looking over the lawn towards the river.
Here’s an aerial view from 1937 looking from the west:
Switchback Road just clips the bottom-left corner, with the right-angle corner of Home Farm a little further up the left hand side. Garscube House is between the farm and the river (close-up below). Maryhill Road is at the top of the photo, crossed by Killermont Bridge which seems to have a tram on it.
While we have multiple views of the House from the outside, we know very little of the inside. The Historic Environment Scotland website has photos (link) but they are dark and tend to focus on architectural details. There were 30 rooms in all, and there was fine oak panelling and carving in the library and the study showing Biblical scenes and family ancestors.
There was also an art collection sufficiently impressive to be mentioned on the British Museum website (link), saying of the son who rebuilt the house: “A notable collector of paintings in his country estate of Garscube House (described by Gustav Waagen ‘Treasures of Art in Great Britain’, III, 1854, pp. 291-294).” I have copied the pages from Waagen’s book into an appendix at the end of this post: I know nothing about art but even I have heard of Caravaggio, van Dyke and Titian!
Here are some views of the House from the south:
The next one is dated to the 1860s or 1870s (metmuseum.org):
From “A Short History of Garscube Estate, Glasgow & Bearsden” by George Brady (link)
This is a much rarer image of the north side, dated to 1920 (posted by Glasgow City Archives on their Facebook page):
In this photo the bridge that stands today is just out of shot to the left.
Searching the newspaper archives I found that in 1928 a charity event was staged at Garscube, a historical pageant, which seems to have involved four re-enactments from Scottish history with wealthy local people playing the leading roles (all in a good cause, of course). But the resulting press interest led to several photos you may not have seen before. Here’s an example from the Sunday Post 12th February 1928 showing the house viewed across the bridge (just visible in the pixels):
The Scotsman of 17th April 1928 also shows a view from the north:
The Sunday Post again, this time from 3rd June:
Here’s what the re-enactment looked like (Press and Journal 28th June):
And the event was attended by the Prince of Wales, who later became Edward VIII and abdicated shortly afterwards.
Royalty being greeted in Bearsden with blazing torches and pitchforks …
Here are some views of the site taken recently:
The steps visible on the south side of the building – we would have been looking at the conservatory on the west end of the house.
The next photo shows some wall left between the steps and the river:
This would have been the view from the south-east corner of the house back to the bridge:
Just to the west of the site is an area of blocks of stone behind a fence – does anyone know what these are?
And finally the bridge:
Appendix 1: the History of the Family (from Glasgowwestaddresses.co.uk)
Appendix 2: The Collection of Paintings
Gustav Friedrich Waagen. Treasures of art in Great Britain: being an account of the chief collections of paintings, drawings, sculptures, illuminated mss., &c. &c Volume 3
Appendix 3: The Gardener’s Magazine, 1st March 1842
