User:Grahamston

Grahamston is Glasgow's Forgotten Village. It first appeared on the map of Glasgow, Scotland, around 1680, as a row of cottages running along the north side of Argyle Street where the Central Station Bridge currently stands. It grew from a huddle of dwellings housing no more than a hundred people, to become an important commercial and residential centre at the heart of Glasgow.

The plans for the first phase of Central Station required the demolition of roughly two thirds of Grahamston, from Argyle Street up to Gordon Street, and from Union Street, through Alston Street and almost across to Hope Street. When the first phase of the station opened, several significant Grahamston buildings remained, not least St Columba’s Gaelic Church, which stood where the station car park entrance is located on Hope Street. But, their reprieve was to be short, for as it quickly became obvious that the first phase of the station could not accommodate the rapid growth of passengers, the remainder of Grahamston was pulled down to allow for the extension to be built.

Grahamston had a varied and interesting life. In the mid-1700s, it had six market gardens, and it was here that the ‘first theatre in Glasgow’ was located from 1764 to 1780. The theatre was not actually in Glasgow - the city magistrates would not allow ‘the house of the devil’ to be built within the city boundary (at that time the St Enoch Burn, which now runs underground between Mitchell Street and Buchanan Street). A group of local business people defied this edict, got some money together and opened the theatre, just yards outside the city, in 1764. It was to have a rough passage, ransacked on its opening night by a mob urged on by a firebrand preacher, and completely destroyed a mere sixteen years later in an arson attack.

The opening of the Royal Exchange in 1829/30 and the Corn Exchange in Grahamston in 1843 ushered in a new era in Glasgow's confidence. The city continued to march westward, and there was stiff competition for the best sites to the west of Union Street. Grahamston began to change rapidly. By the mid 1870s it had become a bustling place, home to just under 2000 people and almost 300 businesses, mirroring the dramatic growth of Glasgow itself. What has been overlooked for many years is that two original Grahamston buildings do remain – the Duncan’s Hotel building on Union Street (currently the Rennie Mackintosh Hotel) and the Grant Arms public house, just round the corner on Argyle Street.

Grahamston’s most enduring legacy is the odd lie of Mitchell Street, Union Street, and Hope Street, which lie at an odd angle and interrupt the famous Glasgow grid, due to the original Grahamston boundaries.