Help Sitemap Home Skip Navigation Contact Us Disability Statement

 
 
Sunday, 1st August 2010

 
Chryston


The neighbouring villages of Chryston and Muirhead are laid out in parallel, along Chryston Main Street and the old line of Cumbernauld Road. Chryston is much the older of the two and indeed lies on an even older alignment of the main road, found also at Mount Harriet Drive in Stepps. This was superseded during the 1780s by the turnpike road that
now serves as the principal road through Muirhead. One of the toll-houses belonging to this turnpike survives as a dwelling house, on the south side of the road directly opposite the Lindsaybeg Road junction.

The old route at Chryston continues eastwards from Main Street as a path leading down to the site of the old Bedlay well. The gaunt outline of Bedlay Castle towers above this path. The earliest parts of the castle are of mediaeval date and include barrel-vaulted ceilings and a turnpike stair. Families in ownership over the years have included Boyds, Robertons, Dunlops, Campbells and Christies.

Chryston Main Street is dominated by the Parish Church, opened in 1878 on the site of a former Chapel of Ease. Before the creation of a new Q~dad Sacra Parish of Chryston in the 1870s the parish church was at Cadder. Also in Main Street, and now serving as the parish church hall, is the former Chryston Free Church, dating from the Disruption of the 1840s. The two congregations were reunited in 1929.

Although more recent in origin than Chryston, Muirhead is now the principal centre for shops and related facilities. Development began over two hundred years ago, but it was not until cottages and villas were built for Glasgow commuters during the late nineteeenth century that Muirhead grew top any size. The Public Hall was opened, as a thrill Hall', in 1878 and the Bowling Green in 1900.

Many of the villas and cottages had chimney cans and garden urns made at the famous Garnkirk Pireclay Works close by. The manufacture of fireclay products was a significant local industry during the nineteenth century, with other works at Heathfield and at nearby Cardowan and Gartcosh. Garnkirk Works closed in 1901, but Heathfield continued in business until the 1960s, although only for the manufacture of firebricks and other mundane products. However, it is still possible to find examples of local fireclay vases and urns in the gardens of Muirhead at the present time.

Also at Garnkirk was a station on the first railway to serve the city of Glasgow, the Garnkirk 8a Glasgow, opened in 1831. The railway is still in use, but the local station was closed to passengers in 1960. Chryston had an even older railway, the Monkland 8a Kirkintilloch, opened as Scotland's second public railway in 1826. It was at Chryston that the first successful steam locomotive was placed on the rails in 1831. The section of the Monkland 8a Kirkintilloch serving Chryston closed in 1965.
 
 

Sister Newspapers:
Press Complaints Commission

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Press Complaints Commission’s Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the PCC by clicking here.