Old Houses, Byres Road

Footnote (3)

    At this point the gate and lodge of North Park faced down Byres Road. North Park, lying along the Kelvin immediately east of the Botanic Gardens, is accessible enough now-a-days ; it is intersected by the Great Western Road and by the route to North Kelvinside over Walker's Bridge. But it was originally very ill to get at. One could only reach it from Glasgow across Hillhead ford, afterwards Hillhead Bridge, and then somehow or other through the lands of Hillhead : neither the Byres Road nor any of its branches touched the little estate. Thereon Provost John Hamilton feued from Hillhead a strip from the south-west corner of North Park south-east of our Botanic Gardens gate to the nearest point of the Byres Road, north of our Burgh Hall, and formed this into an approach which he lined with trees. He could then get from Glasgow either via Hillhead and our University Avenue, or via Anderston and Partick. The little estate is now all broken up into  Buckingham Terrace, 'Hamilton' Drive, etc. The house stood in the middle of 'Hamilton' Drive. Queen Margaret's College was called 'North Park House' by Mr. Bell, who built it. It stands in the old garden ; a few of the old fruit trees remain.