Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

GLASGOW
Main Street, ribbed with closes of the most squalid and
dismal order, every house in which w T as overcrowded to
an alarming extent. At that time it was such a hot-
bed of quarrels and disturbance that it was known as
'Little Ireland.' The City Improvement Trust, how-
ever, drove a new street with a width of 70 feet straight
over the old site of Main Street and its closes, and also
formed a series of new streets irom Kingston Dock to
the E end of Hutchesontown. At the intersection of
this line with Main Street a sort of square has been
formed, measuring about 200 by 180 feet, and known
as Gorbals Cross. Hutchesontown, farther E still, is
about 6 by 4 furlongs in extent, and was considerably
modified by the operations of the City Union Railway,
which passes through the western part of it. It contains
a number of cotton factories, and an iron-work with
blast furnaces. Some distance S of these is Govanhill,
constituted a police burgh in 1877 and annexed to Glas-
gow in 1891. Under the name of ' No Man's Land ' the
district was in 1875 a bone of serious contention between
the burgh of Crossbill and the parent city, both of which
had cast envious eyes on it, and were anxious to include
it within their boundaries. Between Govanhill and the
Queen's Park is Crossbill (a separate burgh from 1871 to
1891) which, lately a mere village, has rapidly taken on
a thriving town-like appearance, as have also the dis-
tricts of Langside, Shawlauds, and Crossmyloof to the
■SW of the Queen's Park. To the N of these and between
them and Kinning Park and Kingston, are East and
"West Pollokshields. The first, consisting of ordinary
tenements of a good class, was constituted a police burgh
in 1880 ; the latter, which consists almost entirely of
detached villas, in 1876; both were annexed to Glasgow
in 1891. To the "W of these is Bellahouston and Ibrox;
and between them and Crosshill is Strathbungo.
History. — Unlike many of the populous and enter-
prising towns of the present day, Glasgow can boast of
a history which proves that, even in those remote times
when trade and commerce were unknown, it was a place
of considerable importance. The name Glasgow does
not appear till the 12th century, but there were two
villages called Deschu and Cathures on the same site.
These names, however, bore so little resemblance to
the present form, that the connection was difficult to
trace. M'Ure, the earliest historian of Glasgow, says
that *it is called Glasgow because in the Highland
or Irish language Glasgow signifies a grayhound
or a, gray-smith.' The New Statistical takes gray-
smith or dark glen, the latter referring to the ravine
at the Molendinar Burn. "Wade, in his History of Glas-
gow, gives "Welsh glas, 'green,' and coed, 'a wood' —
the green wood. But Mr Macgeorge, in his Old Glas-
gow, seems to have solved the difficulty. He suggests
that the transcribers of the old MSS. mistook cl for d,
and so wrote Deschu instead of Cleschu, from which
comes Gleschu, and hence Glasgu and Glasgow (Glas,
'green,' and ghu, ' beloved,' the name being therefore the
beloved green place). In the early part of the Christian
era we find the district inhabited by a tribe called the
Damnonii, who were, during the time the Romans held
the Wall of Antoninus, under Roman rule within the
province of Valentia. This wall, in its course from Old
Kilpatrick on the Clyde to Blackness, passed a short
distance to the N of Glasgow ; and there are also the
remains of a large camp, said to be Roman, on the lands
of Camphill, near the battle-ground of Langside, about 2
miles S of the city. Probably there were Roman garrisons
at stations scattered among the conquered tribes behind
the wall, and of these one is said to have been at Glas-
gow ; but nothing except the vague tradition of ifs
existence is known, not even its name. "When the
Romans retired, the district became part of the Cum-
brian British kingdom of Strathclyde ; but the im-
portant place in this connection is Dumbarton, then
the chief town, and called Alclyde or the Rock of the
Clyde. St Ninian— who was trained at Rome, and
founded the chureh of "Whithorn in 397— according to
the 12th century Life of St Kenligern by Jocelyn of
Furness, established a primitive church and consecrated
42
GLASGOW
a burial-ground at a place called Cathures, where Glas.
gow Cathedral now stands. This was about the begin-
ning of the 5th century, but his influence seems to
have passed away with himself; and when Deschu
next emerges from obscurity, it is in connection with
its later and locally more famous saint, Kentigern or
Mungo, who made his appearance in the district some-
where near the middle of the 6th century, and probably
about 543 a.d. St Kentigern or Mungo was the son
of Ewen ap Urien or Eugenius, a prince of the Britons
of Strathclyde — according to some the King of Cum-
bria — and Thenew, daughter of Loth, King of North-
umbria, or, according to others, King of the Lothians,
to which he is supposed to have given name. Though
Loth was ' a man half pagan,' his daughter had become
a convert to Christianity, and, according to the legend,
in her zeal for her new faith, became desirous of rival-
ling the virginal honour and maternal blessedness of the
Virgin Mary. In carrying out her purpose she scorned
all suitors, Prince Eugenius, who had her father's in-
fluence to back him, among the rest. To escape from
farther trouble, she at last fled to a remote part of
the kingdom, and concealed herself in the lowly
guise of a swineherd. Prince Eugenius, however, fol.
lowed her and found her, and she returned to her
father's court, only to be relentlessly condemned to
death on account of her condition. Though she denied
all crime, her father refused to listen to her prayers for
life, and handed her over to the executioners to be
stoned to death. They preferred the easier plan of
casting her over a precipice, Dumpender or Traprain
Law, but she escaped unhurt. This was considered
clear proof of sorcery, and she was put into a coracle,
which was taken down the Forth to the Isle of May
and there set adrift ; but this was no more fatal to
her than the former attempt, for a shoal of fishes
made their appearance at this opportune moment and
carried the boat on their backs to the shallow water
at Culross, on the N" side of the Firth of Forth. Here
Thenew landed and gave birth to a son, and both
mother and child were brought by some of the country
people to St Serf or Servanus, a disciple of St Palladius,
who had here established a little monastery.* He
received them into his household, where the infant re-
ceived his nurture, and was taught the rudiments of his
faith. The boy, named Kentigern ("Welsh cyn, ' chief,'
and leym, ' lord '), turned out so well as he grew up,
that he became a great favourite with the aged Serf,
who gave him the pet name of Munghu (Welsh mwyn,
'amiable,' and cu, 'dear'), whence came the second
name of ' Mungo, ' by which the saint is now probably
better known than by the name of Kentigern. As he
grew in years and knowledge, he displa3 r ed a faculty
for working miracles which soon attracted attention.
He restored to life a robin -redbreast whose head had
been cut off; one winter night when the fire was
quenched by his enemies, he kindled it again with a
frozen branch which he blew into a flame ; during har-
vest the cook died and there was no one to provide
food for the reapers, whereupon St Serf himself came
and enjoined his Mungo either to restore the cook to
life or to fill his place, a command which he obeyed by
briuging the cook to life again. Obeying a monition
of the Spirit, he secretly left Culross to devote himself
to work in other places, and went southward, the waters
of the Forth opening to allow him to pass. He was
followed by St Serf, who, looking forward to him as his
successor, begged him to return ; but feeling his duty
to lie elsewhere, he would not go back. Journeying
westward, he found, at a place called Kernach, an aged
Christian named Fergus, to whom it had been revealed
that he should not die until he had seen one who was to
bring back the district to the faith of St Ninian, and
who, almost as soon as he saw St Mungo, fell dead on the
ground. Taking the body with him in a cart drawn by
two wild bulls, the saint proceeded on his journey till hs
reached Deschu and Cathures on the banks of the Clyde,
* The anachronism involved in this portion of the luglM haff
been already noticed under Culross.
Co''