In 1861 the south entrance to what we now call Bearsden looked like this:
Just to the left of centre you can see “Canniesburn TP” where TP stands for turnpike. A turnpike was a road whose maintenance was paid out of fee or toll paid per journey and collected by a toll-keeper. The fees collected were overseen by trustees, local gentlemen and used for the road’s upkeep and to employ the toll-keeper and to provide a house for his family.
This seems to be the house at Canniesburn (PHOTO 1)
I have not been able to find out the toll paid. Each toll road was set up by an Act of Parliament (Westminster, that is) so I imagine there is a piece of legislation in some dusty volume.
The house in the photo seems to correspond to the house ringed in purple on the 1861 map with a road running up either side. So was this now the site of the shops on the north side of the modern roundabout?
Here’s a slightly different view of the same house (PHOTO 2):
This makes sense in terms of the 1861 map as there are properties to the right of the (presumed( toll-house and here they are in the photo, a row of white cottages. But in terms of fitting this in the modern landscape this was getting even more confusing for me.
This postcard view (PHOTO 3), dated 1908, seems to have been taken from somewhere to the right of PHOTO 2, but essentially with the same focus.
Could the next photo (PHOTO 4) have been taken at the same time, but from just to the left of the PHOTO 3?
Note the presumed toll-house is just in the left of the shot but we can see a lot more detail – in the foreground there is a bench and I wonder if that is a water trough for horses just to the right? Behind the bench is a signpost – this fits with the 1861 map which mentions “Guide Posts”, literally a posted that guided you on the way by telling you which road to take and how far the distance was.
We can also see up the left hand side of the white cottages to the building behind, which I believe was the blacksmiths (Canniesburn Smiddy, PHOTO 5):
This is taken from the ‘reverse angle’ of PHOTO 4, with the buildings behind the trees being the ones on the 1861 map ringed in blue. I wonder if this shows the photographer’s horse and trap?
While I could make the photos fit together, and even name some of the buildings, this still made no sense to me in terms of the current landscape. The I realised that despite the number of times I had been around the roundabout at Canniesburn, I had no clear sense of how many buildings were still there or of their names. This may help:
We’re over Switchback Road, Drymen Road is top left, MacFarlane Road leading to Milngavie Road is top right, and Maryhill Road is bottom right.
The buildings ringed in blue are Canniesburn Square. I have ringed a building in red – there are other houses just above it and to the right as well. And there are the flats called Pinewood, built on the site of the cinema and ringed in yellow.
To fit this back in with the 1861 map:
First note the buildings ringed in blue on both the 1861 map and on the modern view are the same (and they are the buildings visible through the trees in PHOTO 5)
Second, the building ringed in red above is actually the right hand cottage of the row shown in PHOTO 4, just out of shot.
By eye we can then trace in the line of the rest of the cottages to the left of the red ringed cottage in the modern view, and the toll house (PHOTO 1) would be on the island in the roundabout, as this map from 1935 shows:
The ‘culprit’ seems to have been the road improvements made in the early 1930s starting at Anniesland Cross and building what we now call Bearsden Road, adding a new bridge over the Forth & Clyde Canal, making the road (now Switchback Road, then Bearsden Road) into a boulevard with two two-lane roads, cutting a new way through to the west of Canniesburn Square (the buildings ringed in blue on previous maps, leaving it surrounded by traffic). The north end of the improvements was the layout of the roundabout in a way we recognise it today.
All of which attracted some comment. In the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald of 24th April 1943, DM Buchanan (then about 70 years of age) had this to say:
Note the view he is describing would only be seen in the rear view mirror of your car today as you exited the roundabout heading onto Switchback Road:
Note I have ringed the surviving cottage in red, so the other cottages were to the right, and the tollhouse was roughly where the tall bush is on the island.