Croftfoot (, ) is a residential area on the southeastern side of the
Scottish
Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including:
*Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland
*Scottish English
*Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...
city of
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
. It is bordered by
Castlemilk
Castlemilk () is a district of Glasgow, Scotland. It lies to the far south of the city centre, adjacent to the Croftfoot and Simshill residential areas within the city to the north-west, the town of Rutherglen - neighbourhoods of Rutherglen#Sp ...
to the south and King's Park (both the public park and the residential neighbourhood) to the west within Glasgow, and by the
Rutherglen
Rutherglen (; , ) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, immediately south-east of the city of Glasgow, from its centre and directly south of the River Clyde. Having previously existed as a separate Lanarkshire burgh, in 1975 Rutherglen lo ...
areas of Spittal to the east and Bankhead to the north (across the
Cathcart Circle Lines
The Cathcart Circle Lines form a mostly suburban railway line, railway route linking Glasgow (Central) to Cathcart via a circular line, with branches to Newton (Lanark) railway station, Newton and Neilston railway station, Neilston, on the sout ...
Renfrewshire
Renfrewshire () (; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. Renfrewshire is located in the west central Lowlands. It borders East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire, and lies on the southern ba ...
Glasgow City Council
Glasgow City Council (Scottish Gaelic: ''Comhairle Baile Ghlaschu'') is the Local government in Scotland, local government authority for Glasgow, Glasgow City council area, Scotland. In its modern form it was created in 1996. Glasgow was former ...
.
History
Named after an old steading which was situated at the eastern end of the present day Croftfoot Road, where the Castlemilk Burn now enters a culvert downstream from the site of
Castlemilk House
Castlemilk House was a country house located in what is now the Castlemilk district of Glasgow, Scotland. The house was the ancestral home of the Stirling-Stuart family and was built around the 15th-century Cassiltoun Tower during the 18th and ...
, Croftfoot's housing stock almost entirely comprises grey-roughcast
cottage flat
Cottage flats, also known as four-in-a-block flats, are a style of housing common in Scotland, where there are single floor dwellings at ground level, and similar dwellings on the floor above. All have doors directly to the outside of the buildi ...
s, constructed in the 1930s by MacTaggart & Mickel and rented out by the Western Heritable Investment Company. The homes went up for sale from the mid-1950s and many have since been upgraded internally and externally. In 2007, hundreds of householders in the area received substantial council tax refunds after it was found that their homes had been incorrectly placed in too high a 'band' for the size and standard of property since the system was introduced 14 years earlier. Among the few exceptions to the predominant housing style are a pair of sandstone workers' cottages located at the southern edge of the King's Park on Croftpark Avenue, dating from the mid-19th century when it was a rural estate.
Amenities
There is a large
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland (CoS; ; ) is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 245,000 members in 2024 and 259,200 members in 2023. While mem ...
church in the centre of the neighbourhood; built in 1936 and with historic links to congregations in the inner city
Gorbals
The Gorbals is an area in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, and former burgh, on the south bank of the River Clyde. By the late 19th century, it had become densely populated; rural migrants and immigrants were attracted by the new industries and e ...
district, it is directly across the road from the local eponymous primary school, a feeder for
Kings Park Secondary School
King's Park Secondary School, on Fetlar Drive, in the King's Park area (or specifically in the Simshill area) of south Glasgow, is a Scottish non-denominational state school. It was established in 1962.
Former pupils
* Gordon Brown, author
* Ge ...
. The closest Roman Catholic churches and schools are in the north of Castlemilk (St Bartholomew's) and in
Simshill
Simshill is an area of Glasgow, Scotland. It is on the South Side of the city, approximately south of the city centre. Adjacent areas are Cathcart, King's Park, Croftfoot and Castlemilk. Linn Park is to the south-west of Simshill.
The area h ...
(St Mirins Primary / Christ The King Church). The boundary with Simshill at Carmunnock Road also includes a cluster of shops, a
United Free church
The United Free Church of Scotland (UF Church; , ) is a Scottish Presbyterian denomination formed in 1900 by the union of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland (or UP) and the majority of the 19th-century Free Church of Scotland. The maj ...
and Croftfoot Bowling Club (founded in 1954). There is one further church, of the Baptist denomination, on Castlemilk Road near Spittal, sited next to a petrol station and another group of shops, as well as ''The Croft'', the only public house (and restaurant) in the area.
In 2016, the area's recreation fields south of the railway tracks – which had been bequeathed to the community 'in perpituity' in the 1930s but had been allowed to become overgrown over a number of years – were subject to planning applications for new housing. However, vehicular access to the ''Croftfield Park'' development, completed in 2019, is via Spittal, and the homes fall under Rutherglen's administration.
Other than King's Park itself, the other green space locally is the former 9-hole golf course (a sector of the public park but actually located separately in Croftfoot) which was notable for being dug into a hillside 20–35° steep in some places. Donated to the city by the Western Heritable Investment Company and established in 1934, it became derelict and was used as an area of common ground for dog walkers etc. In 2020, the local authority carried out a landscaping project to enhance its woodland aspects by planting more trees and adding formal footpaths to coincide with flood prevention work required in the area (however, local residents noted with concern that a number of older trees of high aesthetic value were felled in the course of this work).
Transport
The area is served by Croftfoot railway station with two trains per hour, and by the ''5'' (via Carmunnock Road, Croftfoot Road) and ''75'' (via Menock Road, Castlemilk Road)
First Glasgow
First Glasgow is the largest bus company serving the Greater Glasgow area in Scotland. It is a subsidiary of FirstGroup. The company operates within the area covered by the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, a public body responsible for h ...
bus routes from the city centre. These wide primary routes were designed to accommodate the city tram network of the era, but the side streets are generally narrow, and with multiple cars in 21st century households and limited off-road driveways, traffic issues are commonplace, exacerbated by commuters parking their vehicles near the station, which has no formal car park.
Croftfoot's location bordering the existing railway but with the only direct access across the tracks being footpaths (Castlemilk Road is a continuation of the road of the same name running through Bankhead / King's Park with an almost identical appearance of housing style, but does not connect other than by a pedestrian underpass) means all vehicles approaching from the north must either travel around Spittal - a detour of from Bankhead Road at Croftfoot station – or via Menock Road – a detour of from Castlemilk Road at King's Park Avenue – to enter the area.
Gazetteer for Scotland
The ''Gazetteer for Scotland'' is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and co ...