Abbotsinch is an area in the town of
Paisley,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. It is today almost entirely occupied by
Glasgow Airport.
Traditionally in the parish of
Renfrew
Renfrew (; sco, Renfrew; gd, Rinn Friù) is a town west of Glasgow in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It is the historic county town of Renfrewshire. Called the "Cradle of the Royal Stewarts" for its early link with Scotland's former ...
(although not within its
burgh
A burgh is an autonomous municipal corporation in Scotland and Northern England, usually a city, town, or toun in Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burg ...
boundary), Abbotsinch is bordered by the
Black Cart Water to the north and west, and the
White Cart Water
The River Cart ( sco, River Cairt) is a tributary of the River Clyde, Scotland, which it joins from the west roughly midway between the towns of Erskine and Renfrew and opposite the town of Clydebank.
The River Cart itself is very short, being f ...
to the east. Its southern edge was delineated by the burgh boundary of
Paisley, although after the 1975 local government reorganisation in Scotland these demarcations became unofficial.
Abbotsinch largely consisted of farmland before the construction of a
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
airfield there in 1932. The
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
mansion Walkinshaw House, one of
Robert Adam's most significant works
[Walker, Frank Arneil (1986) ''The South Clyde Estuary'', RIAS Publishing, p. 102] was demolished in 1927 to enable the runway to be constructed. Today all that remains of the estate are parts of the walled garden which lie to the west of Glasgow Airport's main runway.
One of the busiest stretches of the
M8 motorway outside Glasgow and Edinburgh is to be found at the St. James Interchange, a junction of the motorway with the
A726 and
A737 roads. The White Cart Viaduct carries the motorway above the airport access routes: its height was intended for large vessels to pass under, however this has never been needed.
References
{{Coord, 55.8625, -4.4441, display=title
Areas in Paisley, Renfrewshire