Articles

In connection with a planned new book and commemorative event in 2022, The Operation Freshman Project is trying to locate relatives of Scottish servicemen who lost their lives during a daring special forces raid in Norway in November 1942.

At Main Street, Barrhead, Renfrewshire there once stood Old Arthurlie Church, known locally as the White or White-washed Kirk. Adjacent to the church was the Arthurlie Burial Ground. North Arthurlie United Free Church, to give its full title, was erected in 1790 as the Burgher Meeting House. Burgher Meeting Houses were places where congregations which […]

There is a happy land, doon Duke Street JailWhere a’ the prisoners stand tied tae a nail.Ham an’ eggs they never see, dirty watter fur yer tea;There they live in misery, God Save the Queen In 1825, Glasgow City and Lanark County decided to build a new prison in the grounds of the old House […]

All the burial grounds described so far have left some trace behind, whether a burial list, a survey map or a mention in contemporary sources. But Glasgow has its own share of medieval burial grounds which usually come to light when developers move onto a site and discover remains. One ancient burial ground has yet […]

Known nowadays to locals as the ‘Riddrie Hilton’ or Bar-L, Barlinnie Prison was built in 1880 on farmland to the north east of Glasgow, in an attempt to alleviate prison overcrowding in the city.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Catholic population of Glasgow and its surrounding area grew rapidly with the arrival of many Irish people in search of work. Their numbers swelled in the 1850s with those leaving Ireland in the wake of the potato famine. St Mary’s Calton RC Church was opened to serve […]

When James II and VII fled the country in 1688 and William and Mary came to the throne, many Episcopalian Scottish bishops felt unable to take the oath of allegiance to the couple because James had not actually abdicated as king. These Episcopalian bishops, known as ‘non jurors’ because they would not swear allegiance to […]

Anderston’s first church, Anderston Old, was opened in 1770. In 1792, a second Dissenting congregation, the Associate Congregation of Anderston, built a meeting house in Cheapside Street. They left there for Wellington Street in 1828, subsequently building Wellington Church in University Avenue in 1884. I have been unable to ascertain who moved into the premises […]

The North Street burial ground (also known as North and South Woodside) was opened in 1821 and was the last resting place of many old Partick families. It lay about 100 yards from Anderston Cross, and was accessed from the east side of North Street. In 1849, the Glasgow Herald revealed a dangerous management practice […]

Graveyard at Lower Auchingramont Road, Hamilton