Giffnock
Giffnock is a town and the administrative centre of East Renfrewshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland.
It lies east of Barrhead, east-southeast of Paisley and northwest of East Kilbride, at the southwest of the Greater Glasgow conurbation.
Giffnock has frequently been named amongst the least deprived areas in Scotland. It had been first place but that title went to Stockbridge, Edinburgh in 2020.
Giffnock is mentioned in documents as early as the seventeenth century as a scattered agricultural settlement. In the late eighteenth century, Archibald Montgomerie, the Earl of Eglinton, was forced to partition the land into a number of smaller properties.
The urbanisation and development of Giffnock began in the mid to late nineteenth century with the construction of several sandstone quarries, and this prompted the development of the first railway link with nearby Glasgow. Large-scale quarrying continued in Giffnock for almost a century. However, the quarrying ceased by the 1920s, and other uses were found for the quarries. An additional railway service began at the start of the twentieth century, closely followed by the arrival of Glasgow Corporation Tramways. Giffnock's relative closeness to Glasgow coupled with the local industry and good transports links helped it to develop into a suburban town, as many wealthy merchants chose to construct villas in its smog-free environs and commute daily to the city.
Although heavy industry died out in the area during the early twentieth century, as part of Scotland's densely populated Central Belt, Giffnock has continued to grow as a dormitory town, supported by its position within the Greater Glasgow area, from roughly 1,425 residents in the early twentieth century to 16,178 in 2001. Expansion continues due to several new housing developments; however, much of the land is now urbanised or designated parkland, leaving little room for further expansion.
History
The Scottish Gaelic name for Giffnock is Giofnag and is of partially Brythonic and Gaelic origin. 'Cefn' comes from the Brythonic meaning 'ridge' and the Gaelic cnoc meaning "hill". In Gaelic, oc or og is a diminutive, and thus when added to cefn gives Giffnock the meaning of "Little Ridge".The first written mention of Giffnock came in 1530, when James V presented Rockend Mill and the surrounding lands to Hugh Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Eglinton.
The settlement of Giffnock first appeared as Gisnock, in an atlas created by Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu in 1654, the first atlas of Scotland. Giffnock was primarily a scattered farming community until the late 1780s, when Archibald Montgomerie, 11th Earl of Eglinton was forced to partition the land into a number of small properties for sale to raise finances.
Industry
In 1835, the first sandstone quarry in Giffnock opened. Before long, the town became known for this industry, and at its peak, there were four quarries in Giffnock, three surface quarries and one underground quarry, which together employed over 1,000 men. The quarries produced two types of sandstone: "liver rock" and "moor rock". "Liver rock" was particularly popular with masons thanks to its lack of stratification, which made the stone easy to work with.In 1854 Giffnock and Orchard Quarries were taken over by the former foreman and clerk, De Hort Baird and William Stevenson. They formed the firm Baird & Stevenson, which became a major force in Scottish quarrying; they later owned Locharbriggs Quarry in Dumfriesshire, thus supplying Glasgow with both blond Giffnock and red Dumfries sandstone. By 1866 the Busby Railway was built, allowing them to transport the stone by rail. Originally, a lower level line was laid from Giffnock railway station into the Orchard Quarry to facilitate the extraction of the stone.
Sandstone from the Giffnock quarries was primarily used within the nearby city of Glasgow and can be found in older parts of the University of Glasgow and the interior of Kelvingrove Art Gallery. A small amount of trade was done with Belfast, and some of the finer "liver rock" was even transported as far as America and South Africa to build both buildings and monuments.
Quarrying in Giffnock continued until 1912 when, due to flooding and the high cost of extracting stone, work ceased. Numerous ventures tried to revitalise the quarries for other purposes, including the cultivation of mushrooms in the tunnels. As the pits began to fill with water, it became an issue that needed to be resolved. In the early 1930s, William Bearmore & Co began tipping slag from the production of steel into the Giffnock quarries. The slag tipping continued until 1969, when Derek Crouch Limited began scrap metal extraction, which lasted until the late 1970s. Today the ground is a wasteland.
Coal mining was also carried out in Giffnock, between 1850 and 1926. The coal produced was of a very poor quality and was of little value to householders. The main use of Giffnock coal was with commercial and industrial customers such as Busby Gas Works.
Urbanisation and expansion
The opening of Giffnock railway station in 1866 allowed business people to build sandstone villas and commute daily to the city. At the time, it was much more desirable to live in Giffnock than to live in the smog-polluted city. By the early 1890s, residential Giffnock began to grow around the railway station and Eastwood Toll, and by 1892 gas was introduced to the area. Gas street lamps were erected by Busby and District Gas Company in 1893; however, these were supported by a voluntary subscription that many households refused to pay, leaving many areas unlit. It was not until October 1896, when Eastwood Parish Council took over street lighting, that the area was consistently lit at night.In 1903, two more railway stations were built on the edge of Giffnock, at Williamwood and Whitecraigs. These stations lay on the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway, originally built to provide a through route from the Lanarkshire coalfields to ports such as Ardrossan on the Ayrshire coast.
The growth of Giffnock was furthered in 1905 by the arrival of the first Glasgow Corporation Tramways tram in the town. The addition of this tram link and the nearby Whitecraigs railway station helped the popularity of Giffnock as a weekend destination and lead to the opening of Rouken Glen park in 1906 by Archibald Corbett, the M.P. for Tradeston. The Giffnock tramline was one of Glasgow Corporation Tramways's most profitable routes; up to 15,000 travelled to Giffnock on a Sunday to visit Rouken Glen.
During the great housing boom of the late 1930s, Giffnock began to grow rapidly. Between 1930 and 1940, as many as 3,000 dwellings were constructed, and the population rose dramatically, from 1,425 to 3,471 in 1939 and 9,144 in 1951.
File:Rudolf Hess - Bf 110D Werk Nr 3869 - Wreckage - Bonnyton Moor.jpg|thumb|left|The wreckage of Hess's Bf 110
crashed at Floors Farm near Waterfoot
On 7 May 1941, during the Greenock Blitz of World War II, the Nazi German Luftwaffe dropped a group of bombs over Giffnock, but only two houses were destroyed.
On 10 May 1941, Rudolf Hess, a prominent Nazi politician and deputy to Adolf Hitler parachuted out of his Messerschmitt Bf 110D near Waterfoot. Hess had flown solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom. He was detained by the Home Guard in the battalion headquarters in the Giffnock Scout hall, where he was questioned by Major Donald, the Assistant Group Officer of the Glasgow Royal Observer Corps before being transferred to Maryhill Barracks in Glasgow the following day. The wreckage of Hess's aircraft was salvaged by 63 Maintenance Unit between 11 and 16 May 1941. Part of the aeroplane is now in London's Imperial War Museum.
Proposals were put forward in 2008 to expand the town with the building of 178 houses on the currently dangerous Braidbar Quarries site next to Huntly Park, involving the Park closing for a period of two years. However, following 2,000 objections from local people and the opposition of the Scottish Government's reporter, East Renfrewshire Council abandoned the plans in October 2011.
Governance
Giffnock is represented by several tiers of elected government. Giffnock Community Council forms the lowest tier of governance whose statutory role is to communicate local opinion to local and central government. It is one of ten community councils of the East Renfrewshire council area.East Renfrewshire Council, the unitary local council, is based in Giffnock and is the Executive, deliberative and legislative body responsible for local governance. The Scottish Parliament is responsible for devolved matters such as education, health and justice, while reserved matters are dealt with by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Within East Renfrewshire, Giffnock and Thornliebank is one of five multi-member wards created in 2007, which elects three council members. For the purposes of the Scottish Parliament, Giffnock forms part of the Eastwood Constituency, which is represented by Jackson Carlaw MSP, of the Scottish Conservative Party. In the UK Parliament, Giffnock is within the county constituency of East Renfrewshire, electing one member of parliament to the House of Commons. Kirsten Oswald of the SNP was elected as MP for East Renfrewshire in the 2015 General Election. Before its creation in 2005, Giffnock was in the Eastwood Constituency.
Geography
At Giffnock is situated in Scotland's Central Lowlands. The town lies east of Barrhead, northwest of East Kilbride and south-southwest of Glasgow.The territory of Giffnock is contiguous with Glasgow and forms part of Greater Glasgow, the United Kingdom's fifth largest conurbation.
Giffnock is situated on the plateau that encircles Glasgow. It is at edge of the area that defines the basin that Glasgow has developed within.
The underlay is composed mainly of sedimentary rocks and freestone from the Strathclyde and Clackmannan groups of early to mid Carboniferous age.
The relatively soft and easily eroded rocks have resulted in the landform in the area being mostly flat with gentle undulations.
The area of Giffnock is typically around to above sea level, with the highest point in the area reaching.
Giffnock experiences a temperate maritime climate, like much of the British Isles, with relatively cool summers and mild winters. Regular but generally light precipitation occurs throughout the year.
Giffnock's built environment is characterised by its mixture of nineteenth and twentieth-century single and two-storey dwellings, most of which are semi-detached or terraced. Towards the south of Giffnock the properties are generally grander two-storey detached villas, commonly built with local sandstone many of which are now listed buildings.
Giffnock is a postal district within the post town of Glasgow in the G postcode area. Giffnock consists of postcode district G46, which also extends beyond the town boundary to include neighbouring settlements Kennishead, Thornliebank, Deaconsbank, Carnwadric and Arden.