Crookston, Glasgow
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Crookston (, ) is a residential suburb on the southwestern edge of the 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 ...
,
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
. Two distinct and geographically separate neighbourhoods about apart on opposite sides of the
White Cart Water The River Cart is a tributary of the River Clyde, Scotland, which it joins from the west roughly midway between the towns of Erskine, Renfrewshire, Erskine and Renfrew and opposite the town of Clydebank. The River Cart itself is very short, bein ...
are known by the Crookston name, owing to factors in their development. Both areas share the same main road (A736 Crookston Road) and fall within the same U.K. and
Scottish Parliament The Scottish Parliament ( ; ) is the Devolution in the United Kingdom, devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood, Edinburgh, Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonym 'Holyrood'. ...
ary constituencies (as of 2019 boundaries), but the northern area falls under the Cardonald ward for
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 ...
and is within the G52 postcode zone, while the southern area is in the Greater Pollok ward and the G53 postcode zone.


History


Crookston Estate

The lands of Crookston were named after the feudal Anglo-Norman lord, Robert Croc who was granted the deeds by
David I of Scotland David I or Dauíd mac Maíl Choluim (Scottish Gaelic, Modern Gaelic: ''Daibhidh I mac haoilChaluim''; – 24 May 1153) was a 12th century ruler and saint who was David I as Prince of the Cumbrians, Prince of the Cumbrians from 1113 to 112 ...
, via
Walter fitz Alan Walter FitzAlan (1177) was a twelfth-century Anglo-Norman baron who became a Scottish magnate and Steward of Scotland. He was a younger son of Alan fitz Flaad and Avelina de Hesdin. In about 1136, Walter entered into the service of David I, K ...
,Crookston Heritage Trail
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 ...
in 1170 and soon built
Crookston Castle Crookston Castle is a ruined medieval castle in the Pollok area of Glasgow, Scotland. It is located some south-west of the city centre, on a hill overlooking the Levern Water, just before its confluence with the White Cart Water. Crookston Ca ...
( in
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
) on a small knoll. In addition to the first wooden version of the castle –
John Stewart of Darnley Sir John Stewart of Darnley, 1st Comte d'Évreux, 1st Seigneur de Concressault, 1st Seigneur d'Aubigny (1429) was a Scottish nobleman and famous military commander who served as Constable of the Scottish Army in France, supporting the French ag ...
had the surviving stone version built in around 1400 – Robert Croc had a chapel constructed, as well as a hospital, beginning a legacy of healthcare facilities in the area which continues to the present era. The area north of the castle, between the
Levern Water The Levern Water () is a small river in East Renfrewshire and Glasgow, Scotland. It rises in the Long Loch and flows generally north and east, past the towns of Neilston and Barrhead, for a total distance of . It empties into the White Cart Rive ...
and the
White Cart Water The River Cart is a tributary of the River Clyde, Scotland, which it joins from the west roughly midway between the towns of Erskine, Renfrewshire, Erskine and Renfrew and opposite the town of Clydebank. The River Cart itself is very short, bein ...
, was forested and known as Crookston Wood (
Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...
remains were found there during a 1959 archaeological excavation), while several farms surrounding the castle also shared the name: Crookston House and Farm to its west, Nether Crookston just to its south, Old Crookston further south and Mains of Crookston to its east. The castle was captured in the mid-1500sCruckston Castle (Pollok House, 1830)
The Glasgow Story
and its importance diminished, although it was restored in the mid-19th century by the Maxwells of Pollok and was donated by the family to the
National Trust for Scotland The National Trust for Scotland () is a Scottish Building preservation and conservation trusts in the UK, conservation organisation. It is the largest membership organisation in Scotland and describes itself as "the charity that cares for, sha ...
in 1931, being the first property the organisation managed.


Crookston Station area

Although other names such as Cardonald, Hillington, Ingleston, Ralston and Rosshill were associated with the territory north of the White Cart river, in 1885 the Crookston name was still sufficiently prominent locally for it to be chosen as the name of a station on the
Glasgow and South Western Railway The Glasgow and South Western Railway (G&SWR) was the third biggest of the five major Scottish railway companies prior to the 1923 Grouping. It served a triangular area of south-west Scotland between Glasgow, Stranraer and Carlisle, Cumbria, Ca ...
's new route between
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 ...
and Paisley – sited between the White Cart and the main road between the towns (A761 Paisley Road West), the tracks followed the trajectory of the abandoned
Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal The Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal, later known as the Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal, was a canal in the west of Scotland, running between Glasgow, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Paisley and Johnstone which later became a railway. Despite ...
and was thus titled the Paisley Canal line). Over the next few decades, a small
commuter suburb A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...
consisting mostly of large villas was constructed around the station, and inevitably this community became known as Crookston. After the lands, previously within the
parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...
of Paisley Abbey,
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 ...
, were annexed by
Glasgow Corporation Glasgow City Council (Scottish Gaelic: ''Comhairle Baile Ghlaschu'') is the local government authority for Glasgow City council area, Scotland. In its modern form it was created in 1996. Glasgow was formerly governed by a corporation, also kno ...
in 1926, it was gradually surrounded by other residential neighbourhoods including South
Cardonald Cardonald (; ,
) is an outlying suburb of the Scotlan ...
, Hillington, Penilee and Rosshall within the city,From historic tale to best seller , Living in Crookston
The Herald, 23 February 2000
also directly bordering the affluent suburb of Ralston, Renfrewshire. Several small developments of housebuilding took place within the area over various eras until almost all the land was built upon, ranging from concrete tenements, terraces of modest houses, semi-detached bungalows and flat-roofed apartment blocks, plus the converted buildings of the original station, which were abandoned after the line closed in 1983; it re-opened in 1990, but now uses only one track and platform for both directions (a small section of double track to the east of Crookston allows trains to pass one another). In addition to an eponymous hotel (extended from a villa) on Crookston Road, there is a good provision of local shops and other services, including churches on Paisley Road West, and bowling clubs to the east at Cardonald and the west at Ralston. One of the very few pre-railway era remnants in the area is Cardonald Place Farm; a mill sited nearby was demolished in the 1930s. The nearest primary schools are in South Cardonald, as is the Catholic Lourdes Secondary School; the local nondenominational high school is Rosshall Academy,Which School Catchment?
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 ...
built in 2001 immediately south of the Paisley Canal railway lines and next to Ross Hall Hospital and Rosshall Public Park, beyond which is the Howford Bridge, carrying the main road south over the White Cart. The local
community council A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain. In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies. ...
covering this area is South Cardonald and Crookston CC.


Crookston Home and Leverndale area

In 1895, a
lunatic asylum The lunatic asylum, insane asylum or mental asylum was an institution where people with mental illness were confined. It was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. Modern psychiatric hospitals evolved from and eventually replace ...
and hospital (known initially as Govan District Asylum, then as Hawkhead Asylum after the surrounding country estate on the periphery of Paisley) was built on a promontory near the left bank of the White Cart to the west of Crookston Road.Asylums in Glasgow: The buildings where madness was managed
CommonSpace, 16 December 2016
Glasgow
Historic Hospitals
It was expanded several times, including the incorporation of the old Hawkhead mansion and a farm for use by inmates, and was renamed Leverndale Hospital in 1964. In that period there was a separate Hawkhead Hospital located across fields to the west of Leverndale, another psychiatric facility south of that at Dykebar Hospital, and another hospital a short distance to the east at
Cowglen Cowglen is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow, within the Newlands/Auldburn (ward), Newlands/Auldburn ward of the city but geographically closer to the large suburb of Pollok. It is situated south of the River Clyde. Much of its territor ...
. New buildings closer to the main road were constructed in the 1990s, and in the 2000s the older units (including the
Category A listed Category, plural categories, may refer to: General uses *Classification, the general act of allocating things to classes/categories Philosophy * Category of being * ''Categories'' (Aristotle) * Category (Kant) * Categories (Peirce) * Category ( ...
were converted to private housing. In 2011, a station for the
Scottish Ambulance Service The Scottish Ambulance Service () is part of NHS Scotland, which serves all of Scotland, Scotland's population. The Scottish Ambulance Service is governed by a NHS Scotland#Special health boards, special health board and is funded directly by t ...
opened at the new Leverndale site, followed in 2014 by the NHS West of Scotland Mother and Baby Unit (relocated from the Southern General Hospital). In 1906, Renfrewshire Combination
Poorhouse A poorhouse or workhouse is a government-run (usually by a county or municipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy. Workhouses In England, Wales and Ireland (but not in Scotland), "workhouse" has been the more ...
was built near Old Crookston Farm to the east of Crookston Road.Renfrewshire Combination, Renfrewshire
Workhouses.org
It was later renamed as Crookston Home Poor Law Institution, before being reconfigured as a
nursing home A nursing home is a facility for the residential care of older people, senior citizens, or disabled people. Nursing homes may also be referred to as care homes, skilled nursing facilities (SNF), or long-term care facilities. Often, these terms ...
for the elderly in 1934.Glasgow Takes Care of its Old Folk
(video footage, 1949),
National Library of Scotland The National Library of Scotland (NLS; ; ) is one of Scotland's National Collections. It is one of the largest libraries in the United Kingdom. As well as a public programme of exhibitions, events, workshops, and tours, the National Library of ...
Four years later, a development of 'cottage homes' (an early version of
sheltered housing Sheltered housing or sheltered accommodation are terms covering a wide range of rented housing for older and/or disabled or other vulnerable people. In the United Kingdom most commonly it refers to grouped housing such as a block or "scheme" ...
) was built immediately to its south, with additional care provided from the main block of the complex as required. Around the same time, a wide area of land to the east and north of the Home (within Renfrewshire's Eastwood parish) was purchased by Glasgow from the Pollok Estate for housebuilding, and after its first stage (today's 'Old Pollok') was interrupted by
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the large
Pollok Pollok (, ) is a large housing estate on the south-western side of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate was built either side of World War II to house families from the overcrowded inner city. Housing 30,000 at its peak, its population ha ...
peripheral housing scheme was constructed along both banks of the Levern Water in the decade after the conflict, surrounding Crookston Castle and also occupying part of the old woodland and farms including Mains of Crookston, Byres, Nether Crookston and Crookston House – the latter, at the confluence of the White Cart and Levern Waters, became the site of Howford Special School in the mid-1960s. In contrast to the preservation work at Leverndale, the Crookston Home facility operated until the 1990s when its functions became obsolete, and the site was then cleared for housebuilding leaving no trace of the original buildings or the cottages. There was already an existing mid-20th century development of houses at Roughmussel at the southern end of Crookston Road (along with a row of shops), and various housebuilders added clusters of suburban villas accessed from the main road from the 1990s until the 2010s, until most of the accessible land forming Glasgow's western border between Howford Bridge and Barrhead Road, a distance of over , was built upon. Despite the large number of family homes, there are no primary schools in this area itself, the closest being in west Pollok a short distance from each other, and another at a modern campus in Craigbank (
Nitshill Nitshill () is a district on the south side of Glasgow. It is bordered by South Nitshill to the south, Darnley to the east, Crookston and Roughmussel to the north-west, Hurlet to the west and Househillwood and Priesthill to the north, with ...
) – it incorporates the special educational needs base previously at Howford School, the vacated building for which was subjected to arson in 2018. The older local schoolchildren typically attend Rosshall Academy and Lourdes Secondary, although St Paul's High School is physically closer for many. This southern sector of Crookston has no official recognised centre, the closest equivalent arguably being the crossroads at Bullwood Drive and Dalmellington Road where there is a supermarket and chemist in addition to Crookston Medical Centre (built in 2000) and Crookston Bowling Club, which has its origins in the 1940s as part of the recreational provision for workers at the
Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...
factory in Hillington Industrial Estate. There is a local Crookston Community Group based just east of Crookston Road, but technically this falls under Pollok and is involved with providing support to deprived communities in the south-west of Glasgow, a socio-economic classification into which most of Pollok falls, but Crookston does notMap Chooser
Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, 2020
– some very large and grand homes have been built, particularly around Leverndale. There is also a natural barrier between the areas for the most part, formed by Haugh Hill and other elevated woodland (labelled as components of the 'Stirling Maxwell Forest Parks', a designation for the many green areas in and around the streets of Pollok, including old Crookston Wood). Echoing the area's past, a new elderly care facility, Meadowburn Home, opened in 2019 close to where Crookston Home had stood but on the Pollok side of these woods; another smaller home at Bonnyholm near Rosshall (replacing a primary school, in a part of north Pollok where most of the residences were rebuilt too) had opened in 2018. Most amenities are located in the centre of Pollok, including the modernised 'civic realm' with district library, health centre and sports centre, adjacent to the Silverburn Centre with various retail and dining options and a cinema. The local community council covering this area is ''Hurlet and Brockburn CC''.


Name

While the individual modern developments in this area have used various names in marketing and for their streets (Raeswood, Blacksey Burn, Langhaul, Castlewood, Leverndale, Bullwood, Parklands etc.), none have been adopted more widely as the common name for their community, with 'Crookston' used by the media in reports referring to events in all of its smaller parts. No clarifying prefixes (Old/New, north–south) have ever been adopted in official contexts in relation to the distinct areas on either side of the railway and river, although their differing history and geography would justify the usage of such distinctions.


Transport

The
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 ...
number 3 bus service between Glasgow's West End,
city centre A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely e ...
, Silverburn and
Govan Govan ( ; Cumbric: ''Gwovan''; Scots language, Scots: ''Gouan''; Scottish Gaelic: ''Baile a' Ghobhainn'') is a district, parish, and former burgh now part of southwest Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the sout ...
runs the length of Crookston Road through both the northern and southern parts of the area. The number 9 service between Paisley and Glasgow runs via Paisley Road West. Trains from operate every half hour, or hourly on Sundays. The closest railway station to the southernmost parts is , from the junction of Barrhead Road. That neighbourhood is also about the same distance from Junction 2 of the M77 motorway between Glasgow and
Ayrshire Ayrshire (, ) is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county, in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. The lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Ayrshire and Arran covers the entirety ...
, whereas the northern neighbourhood is slightly further from Junction 25 of the M8 motorway between
Glasgow Airport Glasgow Airport, also known as Glasgow International Airport () and formerly Abbotsinch Airport, is an international airport located in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland, west of Glasgow city centre. In 2019 it handled 8.84 million passe ...
and
Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
.


Notable people

* Iain Connell, writer and actorPartners from Chewin' the Fat serve up a nourishing new broth of off-the-wall fun , I say, there's two guys in my soup
The Herald, 18 June 2001
* Mary Lee, singer * Jack Milroy, comedian


References


External links

* {{Areas of Glasgow Areas of Glasgow