The Commercial Tyre Service Company (garage proprietors, and manufacturers and hirers of motor vehicles) 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 from Pollokshaws Road and from Nithsdale Drive. Source GCA plans 1927/496
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.
In 1950 plans were submitted to include a roof over the forecourt filling station.
It sold Austin & Morris cars in the 1950s, and Vauxhalls from the 1960s. In the 1990s the business was taken over by Arnold Clark. The petrol pumps were lost, and a new fascia erected over the exterior of the original building. It continued as a Vauxhall dealer until its closure in 2022, and has now been demolished. During demolition the old frontage seen in the 1928 photo briefly re-appeared from under the modern fascia, but it was gone before I could get a photograph of it.
Note the short-lived Union Jack-based logo for BP Motor Spirit on the building.
Unfortunately I can’t find any more information about the business. Their records, including photographs, were apparently submitted to the National Archives, but were never received .
The site has now been cleared, awaiting development.
Queens Garage site from Nithsdale Drive, cleared for demolition, 2024.
Artist’s impression of the new housing development, as seen from Pollokshaws Road, superimposed on Streetview.
Blue Line Motor Spirit Garage
Another garage on the verge of Strathbungo is worth a quick mention. It lay between Nursery Street and the Tramway. The site was previously used by WG Walker & Sons, asphalte manufacturers, but in July 1925 the Blue Line Motor Spirit Company opened their new filling station and garage, just a month after their first filling station opened on Gallowgate.
Opening of Pollokshaws Road branch advertised in the Daily Record, 20 July 1925. Source: BNA
They subsequently expanded to other branches, including Blantyre, Callander and Stirling. In 1932 the Daily Record recounted how the manager of the Blantyre branch used his car to chase a stampeding cow that was causing chaos and endangering pedestrians, eventually, in desperation, ramming it (rather conveniently, into a slaughterhouse) .
The Blue Line office and garage at 538-550 Pollokshaws Road, Sep 1937. Source: Virtual Mitchell C6727
In 1930 they applied to extend the garage to the end of Nursery Street. I have not found any reference to them after 1937. The site is now a block of flats.
McDaids Motatune
A relatively recent addition to Strathbungo garages, Motatune was established in 1982 in Govanhill, but moved to Barbreck Road perhaps around 2010.
Barbreck Road is a short street probably first laid out when the Cathcart Circle was constructed, circa 1886, and is shown on the OS Town Plan of 1895. At that time the last remaining old Strathbungo lands stood on the adjoining land.
OS Town Plan of 1895 showing Barbreck Road and the old Strathbungo “Lands”. Source: NLS Maps
Strathbungo Lands by Barbreck Road, by Duncan Brown. Source: Glasgow School of Art Archives
New tenements were built on the site around 1903, on three sides of the block, with a single storey premises in the back court opening on to Barbreck Road. The road itself did not even feature in the PO Directories until c 1940, though a 1935 map shows the building was a billiard hall. I don’t know what it was used for before Motatune moved in.
Motatune in 2018. Source: Google Streetview
W & H Packham
I don’t know much about W & H Packham’s business on Torrisdale Street, although they did have a stand at the 1936 Scottish Motor Show at Kelvin Hall, where they displayed their Vulcan 21 ton commercial vehicles.
It was a wine and spirits cellar in the 1970s, and is now partly (and previously wholly) the Phoenix furniture warehouse. The other portion recently achieved notoriety for housing an illegal cannabis farm.
W & H Packham, Torrisdale Street, Feb 1930. Source: Glasgow City Archives
Additions and corrections are welcome. And old photos, if you have them.
July 14, 2024 at 4:39 pm
I wonder why this area was such a centre for garages and motor related businesses and seems to have been so over many decades.
The area has been home to interesting businesses, interesting individuals with interesting histories . This must now be the best documented little district in Glasgow
July 14, 2024 at 5:56 pm
Wait until you read about Titwood Road…
July 15, 2024 at 10:04 am
I have been struggling to remember the name of the cafe at the corner of Calder Street and Pollokshaws Road, now an estate agents shop, which was directly across from the aforementioned Queen’s Garage. Hoping someone will put me out of my misery!
July 16, 2024 at 3:35 pm
Over on Twitter, someone has suggested Cafe Capri. Ring any bells?
And before that, a Glasgow South Co-op, though I have struggled to date the Co-op photo. It was a tailors for many years c 1920s-1930s.
February 22, 2026 at 7:05 pm
It was called Empirex Cafe. I frequented it in the forties and fifties when I lived at 26 Nithsdale Drive. Bill Finlayson.
February 23, 2026 at 9:09 am
Thank you Bill but unfortunately it doesn’t ring a bell! Were you a lorry driver at one time who had a garage down the lane from the Drive to the Street?
February 23, 2026 at 7:18 pm
Yes Stephen I was that driver! My dad and I had the lockup in March Lane where we kept the lorry and my dad’s car. I don’t know how the residents whose houses looked into the lane felt about the lorry engine being started up af 7am! Maybe you were one of them Stephen? If so I apologise. We don’t know the history of the garage but we believe the garage originally housed the horse drawn carriage for the police station. How did you work out that I was the lorry driver?
February 25, 2026 at 6:28 pm
Wow, wow, wow!!! I was but a mere wee laddie and my back window looked over to the garage which is now long gone. Your dad once lifted me up to put in the back and give me a wee ride! I must have been about 6-8 years old then. I also recall being invited up into your dad’s house and either your mother or gran gave me a couple of Rowantree Wine drops. Thought the surname was Finlay and not Finlayson. When the name popped up here on Bygone Bungo, it let me wondering if that was the driver. The lorry starting up at 7am didn’t bother me since I lost my hearing at the age of 4yrs 8mths due to meningitis, but not sure about my parents!!!
February 26, 2026 at 9:51 am
Since all has been coming back to me, I realised that it wasn’t your dad but your good self that I knew and it could have been your wife or mother who invited me into your house at 25 Nithsdale Drive and gave me some Rowantree Fruit Drops. I knew you as “Billy Finlay”. I am coming up for 78 yrs old this year so puts you at about 90 yrs old or so?
February 26, 2026 at 4:25 pm
A lock-up in March Lane? Was that inside the ring of tenements that includes Salisbury Quadrant. I presume it no longer exists. Or did you mean the former Thomson Motor Garage, later Southern Cylinder Grinding, on the corner of March St and Nithsdale Drive? See https://bygone.bungoblog.com/wp/thomsons-motor-company/ for more info.
July 17, 2024 at 9:20 pm
Whilst doing some genealogy I keep coming across an address that looks like Hunters Lands, Strathbungo. Have you come across this name? Thanks
July 18, 2024 at 8:21 am
The Lands were the old houses of Strathbungo, all now long gone, such as the one depicted in the article where Motatune sits now. I think they were named after their owners. I don’t have a comprehensive list and don’t know their location.
However there was a Hunter’s Inn on the corner of Pollokshaws Road and Allison Street that would have been just out of shot to the left in that Duncan Brown photo, and is shown on the OS map, next to the Smithy. It looks like that range was already demolished in the Duncan Brown photo. See Strathbungo Village.
February 27, 2026 at 2:40 pm
The lockup was virtually in the back court of the houses in March St. facing Salisbury Quad, behind Southern Cylinder Grinding Co.
I well remember giving several kids a ride! I am 93 this year!
February 28, 2026 at 8:37 am
We lived at 30 Nithsdale Street and were next to the lane so directly in front of our bottom flat back window facing the garage. Thank you Bill for the memories and keep in good health.
February 28, 2026 at 8:23 pm
Had a look today. Was the garage here perhaps, now car parking? The police station is just off to the right, and the white flats to the left replaced Southern Grinding/The Thomson Garage in 2000.
And 30 Nithsdale Street, that was the home of Betty Gow.
March 1, 2026 at 10:15 am
Visiting the place occasionally to go to our favourite eatery and last time I passed the lane, the garage was gone. The photo shows the back of what was the former Southern Cylinder Co. and that ground was just a ground with trees and I used to go there, when living in the area, to climb the main large tree and collect rowan (?) tree red berries for my peashooter and catapult!!