Bishopbriggs

Encyclopedia : B : BI : BIS : Bishopbriggs

Bishopbriggs is an affluent commuter suburb in the northern outskirts of Glasgow, Scotland. Though once an independent burgh, Bishopbriggs is now one of the main towns of the East Dunbartonshire Council Area. It currently has a population of approximately 23,500 people.

Bishopbriggs Coat of Arms: [link]

Contents

1 History
2 Bishopbriggs today
3 Demographics
4 Meaning of the name
5 External links

History

Bishopbriggs was first documented in Cadder Parish records of 1655, and according to one historian only had eleven residents in the mid-1700s. Even four centuries later, after substantial growth, the village was still being referred to in the terms of its mother parish of Cadder. ‘Bishopbriggs’, Neil Thomson stated in 1903, ‘is the fast growing capital of Cawder’. Despite fears that the village would end up being swamped by nearby Glasgow, its house-building programmes of the twentieth century, combined with its strong sense of identity, have ensured its survival. Instead it was the fate of Cadder, a gift from King William the Lion to the Archbishop of Glasgow in 1180, that fell by the wayside, with 2000 of its acres being donated to the city during the 1920s and 30s.

By 1793, the introduction of new farming techniques had improved yields. While crops such as oats, barley, potatoes and flax flourished, Cadder’s population fared less well; a decrease of around 600 from the mid-1760s was attributed to new agricultural methods which combined smaller farms or Run rigs and swept away independent tenants, known as the Lowland Clearances. By 1836 there were ‘almost no cotters’ with the largest farms employing no more than ten people, and some of those as maid servants. Land reclamation (through drainage) changed the landscape so that crops could grow, where once there was only marshland. Dairy products, despatched to Glasgow markets, were relied upon to cover ground rents. The districts' farmers claimed their produce was the finest in Scotland.

Development during the nineteenth century was slow compared to the industrial expansion of other nearby areas, such as Springburn, and in 1836 Bishopbriggs population stood at 175, compared to neighbouring Auchinairn Village's 284. The missing factor was coal, but since this was transported to the village via the areas’ excellent communication links (the Canal, road and rail links), there was little incentive to invest in discovering it. Bishopbriggs’ train station, opened in 1842, underlined its status as the emerging focus of the parish although its expansion was slow throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, however the Carron Company (an iron and mining concern), was the district’s main employer, building the hamlets of Mavis Valley and Jellyhill to accommodate its workers.

Heavy industry didn’t fare for long, however and Bishopbriggs suffered a decline in the early decades of the twentieth century. Most of its quarries were worked out by 1900 and what mines it had closed systematically throughout the 1920s. Luckily, manufacturing industries arrived after the First World War to soften the blow, with engineering firms, a wire-rope factory, Trebor Bassett, and Blackie and Sons Publishers amongst those proving alternative employment. In the 1930s Bishopbriggs emerged as an administrative centre for local government, although the final stage of its expansion was yet to come. The last major boost to the towns’ population came about as a result of the building programmes of the fifties and sixties which replaced Balmuildy and Woodhill farmlands with private housing estates. A campaign by the local Ratepayers Association won Bishopbriggs its late bid for burgh status in 1964, the same organisation playing a major role in keeping it out of Glasgow district (and within Strathkelvin) during the local government reorganisation of the mid-70s.

Bishopbriggs today

The principal retail area of Bishopbriggs Cross is known as the Triangle shopping centre. This was a redeveloped area made possible by the demolition of older tenement housing stock to facilitate the construction of new council offices, retail units, and a large Safeway supermarket (now Morrisons) in the early 1990s. Tenement buildings dating from the Victorian era are still present on the western side of Bishopbriggs Cross. There is also a pedestrianised area at Cross Court which includes the war memorial, erected in 1920 by the Stirling family, once major land owners in the area. The family seat was Kenmure House (now demolished) in parkland which is now Bishopbriggs Golf Course. Cadder House (1654) was also a Stirling family residence. It is now the clubhouse of Cadder Golf Club. Bishopbriggs is also notable for its superior villas, constructed during the 1850s, adjacent to the then recently completed Glasgow-to-Edinburgh Railway, it's art deco 'Garden Suburb' at Brackenbrae Estate, and also for its large scale modern housing developments. In the 1960's, the town residents campaigned successfully to avoid being absorbed into the City of Glasgow boundaries, resulting in the formation of Bishopbriggs Town Council. Following local government reorganisation and the creation of the Strathclyde Region unitary authority, Bishopbriggs Town Council gave way to Strathkelvin local authority area along with Bearsden and Lenzie. Due to the council area reshuffle in 1996, Bishopbriggs is now part of the East Dunbartonshire Council area.

Since major housing developments in the nearby village of Robroyston, adjacent to the M80 motorway has led to residents of the area relying on Bishopbriggs for most vital services; including churches, schools, and recreational facilities, there have been calls for the area to be formally incorporated within Bishopbriggs and transferred from the City of Glasgow to the control of East Dunbartonshire Council.

Famous residents from the area have included the actor and writer Dirk Bogarde, the Oscar-winning director and actor Peter Capaldi, musicians Paul Buchanan and Paul Joseph Moore from The Blue Nile and the political radical Thomas Muir of Huntershill, after whom one of the local Secondary Schools is named. The area is served by seven Primary Schools and three Secondary Schools. Two of these Secondary Schools are set to merge on the location of Bishopbriggs High School. The town has a municipal library, which forms a prominent local landmark, housed in the B-Listed former buildings of the Bishopbriggs School, which was recently enhanced by a £400,000 refurbishment project. Bishopbriggs also has a large sports centre, the 'Leisuredrome' which is one of the best equipped facilities of its kind in Scotland.

Bishopbriggs also houses Lowmoss Prison on the outskirts of the town at the site of a former RAF base, near to the Strathkelvin Retail Park and Lowmoss Industrial Estate. HarperCollins publishers is a notable local business, currently employing some 340 people, though Bishopbriggs remains very much a commuter suburb of Glasgow, with around 80% of its workforce based within the city itself. In the 19th Century there were many small mining communities in the area, including quarries in nearby Cadder (at Mavis Valley) Crowhill, Huntershill and Kenmure. The town was a major centre for freestone quarrying in the 19th Century, supplying many major municipal building projects in Glasgow via the Forth and Clyde Canal until the exhaustion of the quarries around 1900.

Demographics

Total Population aged 15+: 19969	Total of households: 9398
Total men: 9800	Total population of social class ABC1: 12238
Total women: 10169	Total population of social class C2DE: 7731
Total population aged between 15 and 34: 6780
Total population aged between 35 and 54: 6921
Total population aged 55 or more: 6268

NRS Classifications:[link]

Meaning of the name

The derivation of the name Bishopbriggs has caused some controversy over the years. Some prefer the explanation that it was named after ‘the Bishop’s Bridge’, supposedly that over the Callie Burn that runs through Bishopbriggs Park, whereas others believe the middle ‘b’ is a corruption. This, so the argument goes, appeared because it rolls off the tongue more easily than the original name of ‘Bishop’s Riggs’. In this alternative ‘riggs’ refers to the fields which the Archbishop of Glasgow raised teinds (tithes) from.

External links

Council areas of Scotland

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.