Situated on the south bank of the River Clyde and a mere five minutes walk from the centre of the city, it is possibly Glasgow’s most famous district.
The Gorbals area of Glasgow has a notorious reputation that was cast in the shadows of the industry and poverty which overwhelmed the people of the area at the beginning of the 1900’s. It is its proximity to the centre of Glasgow that has, through the last centuries, seen the area serve as first port of call to many arriving in Glasgow from all corners of the world, seeking refuge and opportunity. It has a history that embraces many of the extremes of urban living. Its rich diversity of culture, a heady mix of poverty and overcrowding, and the emergence of a gang land culture all contributing to create an area with a strong character and a formidable reputation.
The Gorbals was first mentioned in a charter dating from 1285, during the reign of Alexander the Third, which stated that there was a village across a small wooden bridge just over the Clyde, south of Glasgow which was made up of a few thatched houses. The village was known as Brigend but the lands upon which it was situated were known by their Gaelic words ‘Gar bhal’ meaning open space, and thus the name Gorbals as we know it came into being. One of the most significant developments of this period was in 1345 when a new stone bridge was erected by Bishop Rae to replace the old wooden one which had fallen into disrepair some years earlier. The Gorbals of this period was still a satellite village to the greater town that was Glasgow. It was only after the Reformation when the village and the lands were feud to Sir George Elphinstone that its potential began to be realised. Sir George was Provost of Glasgow as well as being a successful merchant and in his time he erected a house and chapel at the north east end of Gorbals Street and Rutherglen Loan. After his death the Barony of the Gorbals was sold to Lord Belhaven who appreciated that its surrounding fields and close proximity to the growing town of Glasgow, gave it a great value. In 1650 the lands were purchased by the then Town Council of Glasgow, the Trades House and Hutchison’s Hospital for a grand sum of £6,777, 15 shillings and 6p. Glasgow’s industrialisation and development as a great trading port began to attract many people from the countryside.
The Gorbals being in such close proximity to the main town also began to expand and by 1771 the village contained some 3,000 people. This included a Gaelic community who, as a consequence of the Highland Clearances, were the first significant group of people to migrate to and make the Gorbals their home. Glasgow and the Gorbals grew with the continuing influx of Highlanders and by the middle of the 19th century it was apparent that the Gorbals could not cope with the influx of people. Overcrowding and its associated social and health related problems meant the village and its lands were annexed to the City of Glasgow in 1846 in order that the city could begin to deal with its problems. Bishop Rae’s bridge survived until 1847, to be replaced by a new bridge capable of coping with the burdens of the coming industrial age. The 19th Century brought with it the arrival of people from other lands. Glasgow - Second City of the Empire. Its booming industry and commerce, its trade and development were a magnet to people from all corners of the Empire and beyond. The Gorbals offered many lodgings in close proximity to their point of arrival from the boats that brought them all the way from their homelands to the busy industries of the Clyde.
By 1870 the old village of the Gorbals had been demolished and new tenements and shops were built around the area of Gorbals Cross. This was all part of the City’s attempt to combat the poverty and disease that existed in the area and it was in effect the first attempt at a comprehensive rebuilding of the fabric of the area, although much of this was funded and built by private finance to accompany the burgeoning population. There was a great influx of Jewish people in the 1880’s. They came mainly from Poland and Russia, many en route to America to escape the anti-Semitism that was becoming more prevalent in Eastern Europe at that time. They found in the Gorbals all that they had sought by way of work and opportunity as Glasgow’s industries flourished. It was common at this time to see Jewish names above the shops all around the Gorbals, tailors, cabinetmakers and even tobacco manufacturing. The arrival of a large number of people from Ireland, escaping the blight of the potato famine, was to exacerbate the problems of unemployment and poverty that already existed in Glasgow in the early 1900’s. In the Gorbals 42% of the population were now living more than two to a room, less than half of the houses had inside toilets and fewer than one in ten had a bath. Unemployment was high in the Gorbals, and what work could be found was low paid and short lived. Having survived the impact of two World Wars with the loss of so many of its young men and some peripheral bomb damage, the Gorbals of the late forties and fifties became for many people a golden period. An air of post war optimism pervaded the area. The closes of the tenement dwellings were alive with a real sense of community. The many shops and businesses were thriving.
By now, walking along Gorbals St would be a walk through one of the most cosmopolitan areas in the country. You would pass Geneen’s delicatessen shop and restaurant with the smell of Bagels wafting out into the street; go into Chapeski’s and buy some vooerst, a sweet and sour loaf and some pickled herring; then its on to Lombardi’s for some ice cream. Walking along you would be accompanied by the languages and sounds of many lands. The brogue of Ireland, the lilt of Italian, the rich tones of Yiddish and eastern European tongues and the rhythmic tones of the Punjab all interspersed with the Gorbals patter. This was the time migration into the Gorbals was to begin to go into reverse. During the 1950’-60’s as the older tenemental properties fell into serious disrepair and much of the population began to relocate to other parts of the city. This decay of the fabric of the area initiated the second of the three major phases of redevelopment the area had to undergo. These latter stages in the Gorbals redevelopment in themselves, brought about the civic migration of thousands of people from the Gorbals to outlying estates and new towns. In 1957 the City Council designated the Gorbals as a Comprehensive Redevelopment Area, and so began the process of demolition of the tenements. What replaced them were 19 multi-storey and many other lower rise blocks of modern housing. The area was to be seen as a model of modern urban living. Feted and celebrated by the civic authorities, architects and planners as a vision of how things would be in the future. Renowned architects such as Basil Spence and Robert Mathew were called upon to contribute their own visions to the overall civic plan. No matter how much the area was rebuilt over this period of less than forty years the population of the Gorbals area was to drop from almost 70,000 to just over 9,000. Despite many making a success of living and bringing up their families in the award wining designs of the Queen Elizabeth Square and the Hutchesontown ‘E’ housing developments, both failed and were demolished. Their part in the bold urban experiment was short lived due to a combination of inappropriate design and social desirability.
From the dust of their destruction emerged the third stage in the Gorbals development. Crown Street Regeneration Project was established in 1990, a partnership between public and private bodies with a comprehensive masterplan to regenerate the physical, economic and social environment of the area. Through a mix of speculative housing for sale and social rented accommodation, which refer back in part to the communal close designs of the tenements, it is hoped that what will emerge which will not only be an economically and socially cohesive area, but one which will embrace something of what has gone before.
And so it continues….and so it shall
© Anthony ÓDoibhailein 2017