Northwoodside

    The annexed sketch represents a reach of the river Kelvin -- or, as it is called in the old writs, "the Water of Kelvin" -- at a point where none of the objects shown on it now remain. It was taken from the bridge near the fine church of which the late Dr. Eadie was then incumbent. The sketch was taken on the 23rd of August, 1869, and represents what I then saw with the exception of the house to the left, which had been pulled down a few months previously. I had been familiar with the appearance of that house for many years, and more than once had been in it, and I restored it to its place in the drawing partly from my own recent recollection of it, which was very distinct, and partly from the interesting painting of it by the late Mr. A.D. Robertson, now in the Corporation Galleries -- one of the pictures bequeathed to the city by the late Mr. William Euing. The whole scene as represented in the sketch is what it was in the year 1868.

    The house just referred to was an Italian-looking villa, and, besides the picture in the Corporation Galleries, a view of it, taken from the land side, will be found in The Old Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry. The piece of ground on which it was erected was of very small extent -- a narrow strip forming a wooded terrace  overlooking the river, with the road "leading from Glasgow to Northwoodside Mills" close behind it. This ground was acquired in 1771 by William Fleming, coppersmith in Glasgow, from Lord Blantyre and Mr. Stirling of Keir. Fleming conveyed it, with other land, in 1792, to Robert Miller, also a coppersmith in Glasgow, and in the same year Miller conveyed it, with other land, to William Gillespie, calico printer in Anderston. In 1802 Mr. Gillespie conveyed the property to his son Colin, designed merchant in New York. I have not been able to ascertain by whom the house was erected, but it was probably by William Gillespie, as in the Conveyance of 1802 Colin Gillespie is described as "then residing at Northwoodside", and in the previous titles there is no mention of any house on the ground. It was probably erected previous to 1795, as in Richardson's map of that date a house is shown just about the point where this house stood. Part of the land acquired by William Gillespie was on the north side of the road immediately behind the house, and on this Colin Gillespie made a garden, and connected it with the house lot by an ornamental iron bridge over the road. He also added to and improved the house. After possessing the property for about eighteen years, Colin Gillespie, having become insolvent, conveyed it in 1820 to Samuel Hoare and others, bankers in London, and by them it was conveyed in 1822 to Mr. John Thomson, cashier, in Edinburgh, of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Mr. Thomson occupied the house for a few years, and in 1828 sold it to Mr. Henry Paul, accountant in Glasgow, afterwards the first manager of the City of Glasgow Bank. Mr. Paul lived in it till 1845, when he sold it, along with the adjoining lands, to Mr. Bain of Moriston, by whom they were conveyed to the City of Glasgow Bank, who laid out the ground for feuing.

    The conveyance by Mr. Paul to Mr. Bain is the first in the progress in which I find any mention of the house. It is there called "the mansion house or villa of Northwoodside". In the Country Houses it is called "Northwoodside House", but it was certainly not the mansion house of the estate of Northwoodside. That stood on the ground to the right. Both properties, and much more land in the neighbourhood, formed part of the "thirty-two shilling and four penny land of old extent of Northwoodside" ; and the high three story house in the sketch, if not the mansion house in its original form, certainly occupied its site.

    That house, with land adjoining, belonged to James Lapsley, designed as "of Northwoodside", from whom it was acquired in 1790 by Benjamin Barton, commissary clerk of Glasgow. In the conveyance to him it is described as "that part of the lands of Northwoodside called the Glebe, with the mansion house of Northwoodside and other houses standing thereon, consisting of 4 acres 1 rood and 25 falls". Mr. Barton possessed this house till his death in the end of the year 1816. I have not ascertained when it was built, but from the terms of the conveyance to Barton, viz., the land, with "the mansion house standing thereon", the original mansion house was no doubt there when Barton acquired the property. There is little doubt, indeed, that the house shown in the sketch is the old mansion house -- improved very likely, and possibly with the third story, with its battlemented top, added by Mr. Barton. There appears to have been a small bit of ground -- about half an acre -- lying between the house and the road, not included in Lapsley's conveyance. Of this ground -- so essential to his amenity -- Mr. Barton got a lease from the Parliamentary Trustees of Blythswood, and in 1806 he obtained from them a feudal conveyance to it.

    After Mr. Barton's death the property was in 1818 sold by his testamentary trustees to Mr. John Hamilton of Northpark. In 1831 his son, Archibald Hamilton, wine merchant in Glasgow, succeeded to it, as heir of his father. In 1839 it was sold by the trustees for Mr. Hamilton to Michael Rowand, banker in Glasgow, and in 1851 Mr. Rowand conveyed it to the Union Bank of Scotland.

    Benjamin Barton was a gentleman well known in Glasgow. He was Commissary clerk at the end of the last century and the beginning of the present. He appears in the Glasgow Directory of 1789 as "Benjamin Barton, commissary clerk, second flat above 218 Trongate". The house on the Kelvin was not his only residence. He used it only as a country seat, and it was then a secluded place, far away from the city. His town house, latterly, was the top flat of the tenement at the head of Dunlop Street, on the west side -- the Buck's Head Hotel occupying the other side of the street.

    Mr. Barton was descended from an ancient family, the head of which served under William the Conqueror, and obtained from that monarch large possessions in Lancashire. One of his descendants was Booth de Barton, who married a daughter of the noble family of De Peltier of Normandy, and from that marriage the commissary clerk was descended. Mr. Barton's sister, Margaret, married Mr. McNair of Greenfield, and their daughter, Margaret McNair, became Mrs. Black of Clairmont. By his first wife, Miss Paterson of Ballaird, Benjamin Barton had two children -- a son and a daughter. The latter married Mr. Farquhar Gray of Glen Tigg, in Ayrshire -- a gentleman well known in Glasgow. The son, Alexander, entered the army and became a distinguished officer. On the recommendation of the Duke of Wellington, he was promoted for his services in the field. He commanded a squadron of the 12th Light Dragoons (afterwards the 12th Royal Lancers) in three general engagements -- Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo. He died unmarried. By a second marriage his father, the commissary clerk, had three children -- two sons, and a daughter who married a well known Glasgow man, Mr. Stewart Bell, brother of an equally well known citizen, David Bell. Benjamin Barton of Northwoodside died in 1816.

    Some time after the sketch was taken the flat ground in front was, by filling up, raised to a height very much above  the original level, and on part of it the New Glasgow Academy was built. This ground was acquired by the trustees of the Academy from the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878. It consisted of upwards of 24,000 square yards, and the price paid was £20,000. The ground is described in the conveyance as forming "part and portion of that lot of the lands of Hillhead called the Holm, running along the water of Kelvin on the south side of the said water immediately opposite the lands belonging to Archibald Hamilton, merchant in Glasgow, and Henry Paul, accountant there, situated on the north side of said water". The ground belonged previously to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, who feued it in 1828 to Andrew Reed, merchant in Glasgow. Reed, with the consent of Mr. Gibson of Hillhead, sold it in 1830 to James Grant and William Meiklem, writers in Glasgow ; and it was acquired by the City of Glasgow Bank in 1861.

    The cottages to the right in the top sketch were on the ground now occupied by Rosebery Terrace. I have frequently in passing seen hay or corn stacks behind them, so that they were probably occupied either in connection with land under culture, or for dairy purposes. The whole ground of which this formed a part consisted of 9 acres 3 roods and 6 falls, which was feued from Blythswood in 1806 by James Towers, surgeon in Glasgow. It consisted of two portions -- one a narrow strip of planting lying between the river and what is called in the title "the road leading from Woodside to Glasgow". The other and larger portion lay above and to the east of that road. The south south-west boundary of it was what is now the centre of the Great Western Road. The feuars in Rosebery Terrace have each right to a pro indiviso share of the narrow strip next the river, which is called in their titles "the waterside ground". The feu duty for the whole ground -- nearly ten acres -- was £90 8s 10d, with augmentations.

    On the extreme left -- outside the range of the sketch -- on the rising ground which sloped down to the flat haugh land which forms the foreground of the sketch, there stood in 1869 several rural cottages, with gardens in front of them. These, like the cottages on the other side of the river, shown to the right in the sketch, have all been removed, and probably part of the buildings of the Academy is erected on their site. There were near them a good many trees and shrubs, and they must have formed quiet and secluded residences. The rough pen and ink sketch subjoined, from a drawing which I made on 17th August, 1869, gives a sufficiently accurate view of these cottages. Near one of them in the background was a little thatched summer house.

A. Macgeorge
(Regality Papers, volume 2)