Anderston

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

This edition is copyright © The Editors of the Gazetteer for Scotland, 2002-2023.

It has taken much time and money to make the six-volumes of Groome's text freely accessible. Please help us continue and develop by making a donation. If only one out of every ten people who view this page gave £5 or $10, the project would be self-sustaining. Sadly less than one in thirty-thousand contribute, so please give what you can.

Use the tabs on the right of this page to see other parts of this entry Arrow

Anderston, a suburb of Glasgow, and a quoad sacra parish in Barony parish, Lanarkshire. The suburb adjoins the western extremity of Argyle Street stood quite apart from Glasgow till about 1830 or later communicated with Glasgow by an open thoroughfare, called Anderston Walk, at present the middle and western parts of Argyle Street. Completely enveloped now in the western extensions of Glasgow, it stands amidst these extensions with old dingy features of its own, in strong contrast to those of the surrounding architecture: impinges on the Clyde along what is now a dense and very busy part of the harbour, but what formerly lay all far westward beyond the old harbour's lower extremity: comprises a main street deflecting at an acute angle from Argyle Street and leading on toward Partick, a number of narrow old streets very densely peopled, and a number of newer or more airy ones, mostly going parallel with one another to the Clyde: being bounded E by M 'Alpine Street, N by close but irregular impact of the spacious streets of the new Glasgow western extension, W by Finnieston. It was constituted a borough of barony by Crown charter in 1824: had a town council consisting of a provost, 3 bailies, a treasurer, and 11 councillors, elected by proprietors for liferenters of heritable subjects, and by tenants paying £20 or upwards of annual rent: was annexed in 1846 to the municipal borough of Glasgow: has, since that time, returned a certain proportion of members to the city council and shares largely in much of the industry of Glasgow, particularly in various kinds of factories, and in foundries and ship-building yards. In or near it are 4 churches of the Establishment, 4 of the Free Church, 3 of United Presbyterians, 1 of Independents, 1 of Methodists, 1 of Plymouth Brethren, and 1 of Episcopalians. One of the Established churches bears distinctively the name of Anderston: stands at the corner of St Vincent Street and Dumbarton Road: was built in 1865 at a cost of £7000: supplied the place of an old chapel of ease in Clyde Street, destroyed by fire 1849: ranked itself as a chapel of ease till 1875: contains 1000 sittings: and is now the quoad sacra parish church. One of the Free churches also bears distinctively the name of Anderston. One of the United Presbyterian churehes likewise bears distinctively the name of Anderston: and is a spacious, neat, comparatively recent erection in lieu of a previous old plain building. The quoad sacra parish was constituted in 1875: had then a population of about 7000, and is in the presbytery of Glasgow and synod of Glasgow and Ayr. One of the ten registration districts of Glasgow takes name from Anderston, and had, in 1881, a population of 39,069.


An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

If you have found this information useful please consider making
a donation to help maintain and improve this resource. More info...

By using our site you agree to accept cookies, which help us serve you better