History of Partick

Some archaeologists have deduced that the royal Partick estate was part of a larger elite centre of the kingdom, which included the ecclesiastical establishment just across the River Clyde at Govan.

This is supported by the existence of a deed of 1277 in which Maurice, Lord of Luss made a contract at Perthec for the sale of timber to the authorities at Glasgow Cathedral.

It is commonly thought that the first permanent stone bridge over the river was built by Captain Thomas Crawford of Jordanhill, who was Provost of Glasgow at the start of the seventeenth century.

While Glasgow's Molendinar Burn powered a few mills during the medieval period, its flow was insufficient for the needs of the growing burgh, perhaps as early as the twelfth century.

[8] So the city came to depend on the rapidly flowing River Kelvin for its milling as well as two other locations: Bedlay (Cadder) and Clydesmill (Carmyle).

A prophecy of Thomas the Rhymer (thirteenth century) predicts: 'you may walk across the Clyde on men's bodies, and the miller of Partick Mill (muileann Pearraig), who is to be a man with seven fingers will grind for two hours with blood instead of water.

Such a concentration of mills eventually resulted in the Clyde Navigation Trust building its colossal granaries at Meadowside in Partick in 1911–1913 (with subsequent extensions in 1936, 1960 and 1967).

Subsequently, several other shipyards opened along the north bank of the Clyde, including one directly across the mouth of the River Kelvin at Pointhouse (in 1845).

Further west along the River Clyde, Barclay Curle's shipyard opened in 1855, precipitating the rapid development of the Whiteinch area.

[14] The transport of people and goods along the north bank of the River Clyde (between residential and industrial areas) was facilitated by the construction of the Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire Railway, which opened in stages between 1894 and 1896.

The pressures caused by Partick's very rapid demographic and industrial expansion proved to be too much for the village's mid-nineteenth century infrastructure.

In June 1852, at a public meeting, the householders of Partick agreed to constitute themselves into a Police Burgh to remedy a range of common concerns including: