Darnley

An old estate and suburban mixed housing estate in SW Glasgow, Darnley is located to the west of the M77 Motorway, between South Nitshill and Arden, 5½ miles (9 km) southwest of the city centre. Developed from 1968 on open farmland, which formed part of the Darnley Estate, Glasgow Corporation initially built large seven-storey apartment blocks alongside two-storey terraces and semi-detached homes as public housing. Later extensions and redevelopment brought private housing; mostly semi-detached and modest in dimensions. Facilities include a small shopping centre, church, community centre, library and two schools (Darnley Primary and St. Angela's Roman Catholic Primary). Darnley shares a railway station with Priesthill to the northwest.

The area takes its name from Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545-67), the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87). Mary is said to have nursed her sickly husband beneath the sizeable Darnley Sycamore tree.

Darnley House once lay beyond South Park Village, a half-mile (1 km) to the southwest, and its was around here that the Darnley Bleachfields were operated in the later 18th C. by Charles Tennant (1768 - 1838) and it is here that he developed his revolutionary bleaching powder. The house was finally demolished in the 20th C.

Darnley Mill had ground corn here since the at least the 16th century, using the power of the Brock Burn. It has now been converted to a restaurant. Coal and limestone have been mined nearby since the 17th C., the latter extracted until the 1950s.


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