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Housing in Glasgow

Overview of housing in Glasgow, Scotland From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Housing in Glasgow
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Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, has several distinct styles of residential buildings. Building styles reflect historical trends, such as rapid population growth in the 18th and 19th centuries, deindustrialisation and growing poverty in the late 20th century, and civic rebound in the 21st century.

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A typical Glasgow tenement block

Overview

The city is known for its tenements,[1] where a common stairwell is informally known as a close.[2][3] These were the most popular form of housing in 19th- and 20th-century Glasgow and remain the most common form of dwelling in Glasgow today.[4] Tenements are commonly bought by a wide range of social types and are favoured for their large rooms, high ceilings and original period features.[5] The Hyndland area is part of the Glasgow West conservation area,[6][7] and includes some tenement houses with as many as six bedrooms.

Like many cities in the UK, Glasgow witnessed the construction of high-rise housing in tower blocks in the 1960s,[8] intended to replace the decaying tenement buildings originally constructed in the 1800s for workers who migrated to meet the local demand for labour during the Industrial Revolution.

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History

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During the 19th century, tenement buildings were constructed to accommodate workers who migrated from the surrounding countryside, the Scottish Highlands, the rest of the United Kingdom, particularly Ireland,[9][10] and further afield (Italy, Lithuania, Poland) to smaller degrees, to feed the local demand for labour during the Industrial Revolution which saw the city's population and importance increase rapidly to the extent that it became the 'second city of the Empire'.[11] The massive demand outstripped new building and many tenements often became overcrowded and unsanitary.[12] Parts of inner city areas like Anderston, Cowcaddens, the Garngad, Townhead and particularly the Gorbals,[10] as well as parts of the industrialised East End (Bridgeton, the Calton, Camlachie, the Gallowgate) deteriorated into slums in which disease thrived.[11] Efforts to improve this housing situation, most successfully with the City Improvement Trust which was established in 1866, cleared the slums of the old town.[13] Over 15,000 houses were demolished in the early 1870s, but without equivalent provision of new housing stock.[14]: 345 

After the Rent Strikes during World War One, lower density housing was built on the city's outskirts.[14]: 346–7  Most followed the garden suburb model[15] including a large proportion of cottage flats or 'four-in-a-block' housing with separate front doors – as at Balornock, Cardonald, Carntyne, Carnwadric, Croftfoot, Househillwood, Kelvindale, King's Park, Knightswood, Mosspark, Parkhouse, Riddrie, Sandyhills – built by just a few firms,[16][17][18][19] which were well-received and have largely survived to the present day. Between the two World Wars, the area of Glasgow doubled in size.[20]

Subsequent urban renewal initiatives following World War II, such as those motivated by the Bruce Report,[21] and the Abercrombie Plan,[22] entailed the demolition of slum tenement areas, the development of new towns, the building of overspill estates on the periphery of the city, and the construction of tower blocks.[20] Several districts of the city were designated 'Comprehensive Development Areas'[23][20] with the intention to raze them and rebuild from scratch with entire communities dispersed. Although the new town option was accepted, with places such as East Kilbride and Cumbernauld being established,[20] the need for thousands of new homes was becoming ever more pressing – almost half of the dwellings in the city had been judged as overcrowded in the 1951 census[24] while in 1957, 97% of housing in the Gorbals was still described as 'unsatisfactory sanitorially'[22] – and with the Glasgow Corporation keen for as many citizens to remain as taxpayers within their boundaries as possible despite limited space and funds available, the overspill and tower proposals were eagerly pursued, in contrast with the trend of lower-density housing which had been preferred prior to the war but were considered to take too long to build and use too much land in comparison with the urgent need to replace so much of the inner city.

The four main peripheral developments (Castlemilk,[25] Drumchapel, Easterhouse and Pollok) grew to become among the largest in Europe, while other smaller but substantial neighbourhoods (Arden, Barlanark, Barmulloch, Cranhill, Eastwood, Garthamlock, Merrylee, Milton, Penilee, Ruchazie, South Nitshill, Toryglen) were also constructed, largely consisting of tenement-style housing of three or four storeys.[26][27] The city's initial multi-storey residential experiments in the 1950s at Crathie Court, Moss Heights and Prospecthill were largely successful (and have survived into the 21st century)[28][29][30] but their scale of only 10 floors did not address the availability issue sufficiently, and in the next decade the number of towers commissioned by Glasgow and the height of the structures, including ambitious projects in Dalmarnock, Hutchesontown,[23][22][31] Kennishead, Pollokshaws, Red Road,[23] Scotstounhill, Sighthill[20] Woodside[32] and Wyndford,[33] was also one of the highest across the continent.

While the facilities in dwellings in the towers and the modern tenements were an improvement on the slum housing, the large 'schemes' lacked basic amenities and employment opportunities,[25] and were often cheaply built using pre-fabricated concrete construction methods which were ill-suited to the intemperate climate of Western Scotland. Damp quickly penetrated and spread within the new buildings which caused health problems; this was also the case with many of the tower blocks (or 'high flats' as they typically referred to by Glaswegians), many of which were surrounded by low-rise housing on a common design theme from idealised plans which seldom matched reality – in some cases, existing amenities in older districts had been swept away to provide space for the modern 'upgrades', which sometimes never materialised or were inadequate. Many residents struggled with the lack of provision made for child welfare and social needs such as hairdressing and clothing shops,[25] there were also issues arising from the lack of help given to older members of the community in adjusting to the new buildings and amenities. Some first generation 'emigrees' chose to return to their old neighbourhoods to socialise whenever possible, creating a strange situation where otherwise desolate environments such as post-demolition Gorbals retained thriving public houses on isolated corners, with their clientele having stayed loyal despite moving several miles away to estates with no such establishments. The condition of the schemes and the towers was not helped by the decline of the city's traditional industries in the same period, with breadwinners finding themselves out of work and their families isolated on the edge of town or fifteen floors up (sometimes both) in a city with low levels of car ownership, contributing to an increase in antisocial behaviour like gang fighting and vandalism, and the abuse of alcohol and drugs, all of which earned many parts of Glasgow a generalised reputation as hotbeds of violence and deprivation which should be avoided, in effect new slums in place of those they had been intended to replace just a few decades earlier.[33]

As demonstrated elsewhere in the UK, the tower blocks gradually deteriorated, attracting crime and fostering a reputation for being undesirable low cost housing. Because many of the towers were of a standard "off the peg" design, it meant that design flaws were replicated in several areas of the city. The cost of maintaining the buildings was far higher than anticipated, and while some tower blocks were upgraded in the 1980s with apex roofs and external cladding to combat damp and condensation problems; in 1992 - concierge services and secure access was added to many of the blocks. That same year, the city council demolished its first tower block in the Roystonhill area, and set the precedent that demolition was becoming the preferred solution over repair and renovation. While some of the initial tenants were happy living in the towers and chose to stay, the low desirability of the accommodation meant that those who were dissatisfied and moved out were typically replaced by 'problem' tenants with little other option whose lifestyles led to the issues worsening, more original tenants left and the downward cycle continued until some of the blocks were almost empty. A major turning point in the city's policy towards such "schemes" was signalled when the decision was taken to demolish the Hutchesontown C tower blocks in 1993 – at the time of their construction considered flagship developments, but now viewed as a monument to the planning mistakes of the 1950s and 1960s.

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The now demolished Red Road estate came to symbolise the mistakes of the city's 1960s housing policy.

Meanwhile, the policy of tenement demolition was now considered to have been short-sighted, wasteful and largely unsuccessful. In the East End, the Glasgow Eastern Area Renewal (GEAR) scheme which began in the late 1970s demonstrated that the tenements, if sympathetically refurbished, could be turned back into viable housing of a higher quality than many of the post-war concrete estates and towers. Following the GEAR initiative, many of Glasgow's worst tenements in areas such as Govan and Springburn also were refurbished into desirable accommodation in the 1970s and 1980s[34] and the policy of demolition is considered to have destroyed many fine examples of a "universally admired architectural style",[5] although this traditional style survives in many districts (with variations in design and quality) including Battlefield, Cathcart, Crosshill, Cessnock, Dennistoun, East Pollokshields, Finnieston, Govanhill, Hillhead, Hyndland, Linthouse, Partick, Possilpark, Shawlands, Shettleston, Woodlands, Yoker and Yorkhill. They have outlasted the vast majority of the inter-war rehousing grade (lower quality material) blocks intended to replace them, with developments at Barrowfield, Blackhill, the Calton, Cowlairs, Hamiltonhill, Lilybank, 'Maryhill Valley', Moorepark[35] Oatlands and Teucharhill having to be rebuilt from scratch by the 2010s (pockets of this style remain at Battlefield, Bridgeton, Craigton, Germiston, Govanhill, Haghill, Ibrox, Riddrie, Scotstoun, Shawlands, Shettleston, Springburn etc., mostly refurbished or better appointed from the outset).

The Glasgow Housing Association took ownership of the housing stock from the city council on 7 March 2003, and began a £96 million programme to clear and demolish many of the high-rise flats and refurbish others;[36] such programmes had already been implemented in most of the peripheral schemes, with some refurbishment and some replacement of tenements with individual houses, and this work also continued under the GHA and local housing co-operatives.

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Future developments

Despite the GHA's ongoing demolition programme since the early 2000s which by 2014, had seen over 40 high rise blocks across the city demolished - high rise housing developments once again have become fashionable, however aimed at a different audience. New private developments such as the Argyle Building in 2008 have been followed by upmarket schemes such as Buchanan Wharf in Tradeston in 2022. A new wave of high rise student accommodation (PBSA) schemes have emerged in the 2020s, often replacing redundant office buildings in the city centre and making use of gap sites on its periphery. Some of the new towers are of a similar height to the social housing blocks constructed in the 1960s, with others slated to become the tallest buildings ever constructed in the city - such as The Ard in the Charing Cross area.

Glasgow tower blocks

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The map and list concentrates on towers of at least 12 storeys in height built between the late 1950s and early 1970s within Glasgow. Also includes early 10-storey developments at Moss Heights and Toryglen due to their importance in the uptake of the method, but does not include numerous similar developments outside the city boundaries[a] nor modern residential developments (e.g. Argyle Building, Glasgow Harbour, Lancefield Quay),[37][38][39] nor contemporary high rise buildings constructed in the 1960s/70s for commercial or academic purposes (e.g. Glasgow College of Building and Printing, Elmbank Gardens, Livingstone Tower and The Pinnacle – the latter was originally a commercial property before being converted to residential use in the early 21st century).[40]

List of developments

As of 29 June 2025
  • Key:
  • Green dot = Existing development
  • Blue dot = Partially existing development (some blocks demolished, figures are for original completed total).
  • Red dot = Demolished development
  • ABC(4) = Code for development name (number of towers).
Map showing Glasgow's residential tower blocks (12 storeys or over) built between the 1950s and 1970s.


More information Development, Neighbourhood ...

Notes

  1. Nearby developments include Airbles, Calderwood, Cambuslang, Clydebank, Coatbridge, Cumbernauld, Drumry, East Kilbride, Motherwell, Muirhouse, Paisley, Whitlawburn, as well as the Clydeholm towers at Yoker railway station, a few yards outside the city boundary.
  2. 56 Blythswood Court – Dalriada,
    323 Blythswood Court – Columba,
    421 Blythswood Court – Davaar
  3. 14 Shaftesbury Street,
    52 St Vincent Terrace (part of a development of several desk-access blocks, but no others tall enough to be considered a high-rise structure)
  4. Total for these two structures only
  5. 2231 Great Western Road,
    2241 Great Western Road,
    2251 Great Western Road,
    2261 Great Western Road
  6. 112 Baltic Street,
    11 Ruby Street,
    31 Ruby Street
  7. 141 Broomhill Drive,
    154 Broomhill Drive,
    5 Broomhill Lane,
    10 Broomhill Lane,
    25 Broomhill Lane
  8. The first 'multi-storey' blocks (albeit only 10 floors) in the city.
  9. 20–60 Moss Heights Avenue,
    80–180 Moss Heights Avenue,
    200–220 Moss Heights Avenue
  10. 5 Queensland Court – Cumbrae,
    15 Queensland Gardens – Bute
  11. 20 Tarfside Oval – Caledonia Court,
    40 Tarfside Oval – Meldrum Court,
    60 Tarfside Oval – Roberts Court,
    80 Tarfside Oval – Gowrie Court
  12. 21 Dougrie Place – Muirhouse Heights,
    25 Dougrie Place – Waterbank Heights,
    33 Dougrie Place – Kittoch Heights
  13. Inspiration for the Jeely Piece song about childhood living in the Glasgow towers.[61]
  14. 3 Mitchellhill Road – Crichton Court,
    5 Mitchellhill Road – Carnbooth Court,
    7 Mitchellhill Road – Netherton Court,
    9 Mitchellhill Road – Cathkin Court,
    11 Mitchellhill Road – Castleton Court
  15. 2 Dundasvale Court,
    6 Dundasvale Court,
    22 Dundasvale Court
  16. 138 Fastnet Street,
    7 Longstone Place,
    25 Soutra Place
  17. Setting for High Times (TV series).
  18. See also: The Dalmarnock fire tests.
  19. 131 Allan Street,
    4 Millerfield Place,
    40 Millerfield Road,
    50 Millerfield Road
  20. 15 Linkwood Crescent,
    27 Linkwood Crescent,
    39 Linkwood Crescent
  21. 24 Mallaig Road,
    15 Mountgarrie Road
  22. Gibson Heights,
    Lister Heights,
    Simpson Heights
  23. 20 Dumbreck Court,
    40 Dumbreck Court
  24. Tallest buildings in the city from 1968 to 2015.
  25. 109 Bluevale Street,
    51 Whitevale Street
  26. 9 Coll Place,
    15 Coll Place,
    15 Forge Place
  27. 12 Commercial Court,
    11 Waddell Court,
    39 Waddell Court,
    83 Waddell Court
  28. 2 Queen Elizabeth Square,
    16–32 Queen Elizabeth Square
  29. 305 Caledonia Road,
    341 Caledonia Road,
    48 Cumberland Street,
    474 Old Rutherglen Road
  30. 170 Sandiefield Road,
    200 Sandiefield Road
  31. 5/17 Norfolk Court,
    54/66 Norfolk Court,
    40/80 Stirlingfauld Place,
    45/85 Stirlingfauld Place
  32. 31 Iona Court,
    45 Iona Court,
    59 Iona Court
  33. Built on site of Albion Greyhound Stadium
  34. 5 Broomloan Court,
    17 Broomloan Court,
    29 Broomloan Court
  35. 8 Ibroxholm Oval,
    15 Ibroxholm Oval,
    9 Ibrox Terrace
  36. 30 Kennishead Avenue,
    40 Kennishead Avenue,
    50 Kennishead Avenue,
    60 Kennishead Avenue,
    70 Kennishead Avenue
  37. 15 Kirkton Avenue – Cheviot Court,
    55 Kirkton Avenue – Dunvegan Court,
    75 Kirkton Avenue – Foyers Court,
    115 Kirkton Avenue – Vorlich Court,
    135 Kirkton Avenue – Pentland Court
  38. 150 Kestrel Road,
    190 Kestrel Road – Lawers,
    160 Lincoln Avenue – Ledi,
    200 Lincoln Avenue – Arkle,
    ,240 Lincoln Avenue – Arthur
    280 Lincoln Avenue – Kilpatrick
  39. Setting for Still Game TV series.
  40. 29 Glenavon Road,
    71 Glenavon Road,
    115 Glenavon Road
  41. 60 Glenfinnan Road – Strathcarron Place / Anderson,
    61 Glenfinnan Road – Beauly Place / Brodie,
    80 Glenfinnan Road – Fogo Place / Turnbull,
    110 Glenfinnan Road – Strathy Place / Hunter,
    130 Glenfinnan Road – Glenfinnan Place / Hamilton
  42. 120 Wyndford Road – Gowrie,
    151 Wyndford Road – Kilmair Place / Edwards,
    171 Wyndford Road – Migvie Place / Rodgers,
    191 Wyndford Road – Gorstan Place / Blaker
  43. 27 Castlebay Drive,
    69 Castlebay Drive,
    123 Castlebay Drive
  44. 15 Scaraway Drive,
    61 Scaraway Drive,
    34 Scaraway Terrace
  45. 12 Cathkinview Place – Langside Court,
    15 Cathkinview Place – Battlefield Court
  46. 160 Helenvale Street,
    162 Helenvale Street,
    164 Helenvale Street
  47. 23 Riverbank Street,
    12 Riverford Road,
    124 Shawbridge Street,
    142 Shawbridge Street,
    160 Shawbridge Street,
    215 Shawbridge Street,
    232 Shawbridge Street,
    33 Shawholm Crescent,
    93 Shawholm Crescent
  48. 5 Birness Drive,
    19 Birness Drive,
    31 Birness Drive,
    145 Shawhill Road
  49. 109 Wester Common Road,
    151 Wester Common Road,
    187 Wester Common Road,
    231 Wester Common Road
  50. Setting for Red Road.
  51. 21 Birnie Court,
    10/20/30 Petershill Court,
    153/183/213 Petershill Court,
    33 Petershill Drive,
    63 Petershill Drive,
    93 Petershill Drive,
    123 Petershill Drive,
    10 Red Road Court
  52. 80 Charles Street – Wallace House,
    90 Charles Street – Burns House,
    140 Charles Street – Lomond House,
    150 Charles Street – Nevis House,
    160 Charles Street – Campsie House
  53. 20 Rosemount Street,
    39 Rosemount Street,
    40 Rosemount Street,
    240 Roystonhill
  54. 20 Balbeggie Street,
    30 Balbeggie Street,
    58 Strowan Street,
    60 Strowan Street
  55. 10 Kingsway Court,
    20 Kingsway Court,
    30 Kingsway Court,
    40 Kingsway Court,
    50 Kingsway Court
    60 Kingsway Court
  56. 55 Plean Street,
    75 Plean Street
  57. 37/49 Fountainwell Avenue – Tennant Heights,
    2/4 Fountainwell Place – Eagle Heights,
    16/18 Fountainwell Place – Barony Heights,
    6/8 Fountainwell Square – Phoenix Heights,
    2/4 Fountainwell Terrace – St Rollox Heights
  58. 3/5 Pinkston Drive – Pinkston Heights,
    16/18 Pinkston Drive – Parson Heights,
    17/19 Pinkston Drive – Huntingdon Heights,
    31/35 Pinkston Drive – Crawfurd Heights,
    32/34 Pinkston Drive – Hartfield Heights
  59. 22 Viewpoint Place,
    42 Viewpoint Place,
    178 Balgrayhill Road,
    198 Balgrayhill Road
  60. 53 Carbisdale Street,
    12 Eccles Street,
    15 Eccles Street,
    195 Fernbank Street
  61. 15 Croftbank Street – Newlands,
    250 Edgefauld Road – Wellfield
  62. Setting for Sony Bravia 'paint' television advert.[207]
  63. 24 Crossbank Road,
    99 Prospecthill Circus,
    111 Prospecthill Circus
  64. 3 Prospecthill Crescent,
    7 Prospecthill Crescent,
    11 Prospecthill Crescent,
    15 Prospecthill Crescent,
    19 Prospecthill Crescent,
    999 Prospecthill Road
  65. 12 Dobbie's Loan Place,
    15 Grafton Place,
    7 St Mungo Place,
    2 Taylor Place
  66. Katrine Court,
    Lorne Court,
    Torridon Court
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References

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