Maryhill
From Free net encyclopedia
- This article is about the area of Glasgow. For other uses, see Maryhill (disambiguation)
Maryhill is a residential district in the northwest of the City of Glasgow. Previously an administratively independent Police Burgh from 1856, Maryhill was incorporated into Glasgow in 1912.
It takes its name from Mary Hill, who granted land from her Gairbraid Estate for the building of a village on the condition that it bore her name. The building of the Forth and Clyde Canal prompted Maryhill's development, and the new waterway attracted boat-building, saw-milling and other industries such as ironfounding to its banks. One region of the district is famously called Botany (locally as "the Butney"), a name derived from Botany Bay, the infamous penal colony where it was said many residents would be likely to end up. Most of this area was demolished in 2004 has yet to be rebuilt.
The area is home to Partick Thistle F.C., Maryhill F.C. and the Maryhill Harriers running club.
The Maryhill area has two historical claims to fame:
- A part of the Antonine Wall runs through Maryhill, in the Summerston area, where there is the site of a Roman fort adjoining the wall.
- Maryhill is home to the Maryhill Barracks, which famously held Hitler's second-in-command Rudolf Hess during World War Two after his supposed "Peace" flight to the UK. The Barracks were decomissioned in the early 1960's and have now been converted into the Wyndford housing estate.
The area has been the location for a number of television programmes and films:
- Interior scenes of hit CBBC children's programme Balamory are filmed in studios in Maryhill; The 1960's T.V. soap 'The high life' was set in a tower block in the Wyndford.
- The hit BBC television comedy series Chewin' the Fat was filmed in the area, a precedent followed by its successor the sitcom Still Game which often shows local features including the Forth and Clyde Canal in the background of outdoor shots.
- Taggart, a world famous Scottish detective television programme, is set and filmed in Maryhill. Remarkably tourists still come to the Maryhill police station to take photographs.
- A cafe in Maryhill was used as a set in Trainspotting, Jaconelli's at the Queens Cross area [1]
Maryhill had the first temperence society in the U.K after lawlessness filled the streets in the 19th century.
Maryhill has the dubious distinction of being one of the most deprived parliamentary constituencies in Britain. Whilst poverty is a problem in Maryhill there are some areas of relative affluence within the district such as Maryhill Park, on the district's northern fringes, and in the southern area, North Kelvinside.