Category: Trade (page 1 of 7)

Scottish Cars & the industrial heartland of Titwood Road

The last article in the series on Strathbungo’s commercial motor garages, but this one covers much more than just Scottish Cars. You wouldn’t believe it now, but Titwood Road was once a hive of industry, covering cars, photography, catering, indoor tennis, bowls, boxing, engineering, boot making, cold storage, veterans, and a large dairy. Almost all evidence of this has now vanished.

Titwood Road

Lane off Waverley Street, the original line of Titwood Road

Titwood Road was originally a farm lane that led over the railway where Crossmyloof Station now sits. The tenements of Waverley Gardens were built with their back courts facing directly onto the lane, but in 1922 the road was realigned a little further north, providing new plots for the Pollok Estate to feu on the south side of the road. At the Pollokshaws end, these plots were used for housing, as extensions of the Moray Park development of red sandstone houses by James Wright (Strathbungo’s Gardens) and the white houses of William Todd Aitkenhead (Carswell Gardens). From opposite Carswell Gardens up to Minard Road, the plots were all feued for commercial purposes.

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Southern Motors

Southern Motors operated out of a showroom and garage on the corner of Pollokshaws Road and Titwood Road, on land owned by the Wright family. Their plans for this land appear to have changed more than once.

The Cottages

Where the BP Garage sits now, there were once two substantial houses that dated from the 1850s or earlier. These were Springhill and Greenhill Cottages, at 898 and 910 Pollokshaws Road respectively. Springhill Cottage took its name from the nearby Springhill House – as did the red sandstone tenements of Springhill Gardens (built 1904-6, architect John Nisbet) which replaced the house.

Excerpt of map showing the two cottages on Pollokshaws Road

OS Map 1893. Source: NLS Maps

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The Queen’s Garage

The Commercial Tyre Service Company (garage proprietors, and manufacturers and hirers of motorvehicles) was founded in May 1927 with £12,000 capital , and the same year an application was submitted to construct a garage and showroom at 640 Pollokshaws Road at the junction with Nithsdale Drive. The land had previously belonged to Glasgow Corporation.

Elevations of proposed garage

Elevations from Pollokshaws Road and from Nithsdale Drive. Source GCA plans 1927/496

Site plan

Plan of the garage. Note the many lock ups. Source: GCA Plans 1927/496

The business traded as The Queen’s Garage. Like many of the local garages, it initially sold petrol from the small forecourt on the corner, and concentrated on lock-ups for local car owners, which take up much of the site.

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