Moses Steven died in 1871 and was succeeded by his sisters Elizabeth and Grace Steven. He had expressed the wish that his fortune, which had come from Glasgow, should go to Glasgow. In the same year, the Steven sisters established the Bellahouston Trust and in conformity with their brother’s wishes, dedicated the property at Bellahouston for charitable, religious and educational purposes within the city. The Bellahouston Trust became operative on the death of Elizabeth Steven in 1892. By then, large parts of the estate had been feud. In 1895 the remaining 176 acres and with it Bellahouston House, were sold by the Trustees of the Bellahouston Bequest Fund to Glasgow Corporation for the sum of £50,000 to form what was the city’s largest public park. At the time, Bellahouston lay just outside the municipal boundaries, but in purchasing the estate, Glasgow anticipated the needs of its rapidly spreading city. Only one year later, that part of Lanarkshire, which included the park and Craigton to the north, became art of Glasgow.
During 1899, Glasgow’s second municipal golf course (now the 18 hole pitch and putt course) was established at Bellahouston Park following the success of the course opened in 1896 at Alexandra Park. The park was extended in 1901 by the addition of a part of Dumbreck Lands purchased for the sum of £2,824 from Sir John Maxwell Bart. In 1903 the adjoining lands of Ibroxhill and the old mansion house of Ibroxhill were purchased by the corporation at a cost of £40,22 to provide access to the park at the junction of Dumbreck Road and Paisley Road, which was the natural entrance from the city to the grounds.
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Ibroxhill Mansion |
Bellahouston Rockery |
Ibroxhill had originally been part of the lands of Ibrox and until the middle of the 18th century was the property of the Hill family. In 1801, it was acquired by John Bennett, a Glasgow lawyer, who immediately began to build a new house. In 1816 it was purchased by John McColl, a Glasgow merchant, and to distinguish it from the other part of Ibrox he called it Ibroxhill. He added to the mansion from the designs of his brother-in-law, James Smith of Jordanhill. Glasgow Corporation converted the mansion into a tea room in 1905 and a general waiting room in 1910. In 1914, Ibroxhill House was demolished, but the front porch (portico) was left standing and a rockery was made with some of the stones.
On the eastern fringes of the park the middle class residential areas of Bellahouston and Dumbreck were once part of the Bellahouston Estate. During the First World War, Bellahouston Park became the location for a military hospital. The hospital stood on the grounds where the Leisure centre is today. The soldiers were eventually moved to Erskine Hospital. Bill Struth, the legendary manager (1920-1954) of Glasgow Rangers Football Club served as a physiotherapist atthe hospital during this time.Bellahouston Park, due to its size and relative absenceof formal walkways has always been an ideal locationfor the city’s events. The largest event to take place in Bellahouston was the ambitious 1938 Empire Exhibition. The site took fourteen months to build and was attended by 12.5 million visitors.
The Empire Exhibition
The 1938 Empire Exhibition was to be ‘the most elaborate and extravagant exhibition ever held in Britain’. Bellahouston Park was selected as it gave the organisers a large open space and a commanding view of the city. Formally opened on the 3 May 1938 at nearby Ibrox Stadium by King George VI and Queen Mary the site included more than 100 diverse sites ranging from a post office to a Highland Village complete with a Chiefs Castle. There were numerous pavilions, the two largest being the Palace of Engineering and Industry. The eating facilities included one of the first Indian restaurants in Scotland and the Atlantic Restaurant, modelled on an ocean liner. The Clachan, a life-size model of a Highland village also proved to be a popular attraction. Architect Colin Sinclair assembled cottages from various parts of the Highlands and Islands and included one of his own designs, which he saw as a model for the future. The people who inhabited the village, carrying out their daily tasks as though at home, were genuine Gaelic-speaking Highlanders.
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Tait's Tower |
TW Marwick's Atlantic Restaurant |
One of the stars of the Exhibition was Mary Morrison from Barra, who sang Gaelic laments while working from her spinning wheel. Dominating the whole exhibition on the summit of Bellahouston Park, above the grand staircase complete with waterfall, stood ‘The Tower of Empire’ affectionately known as ‘Tait’s Tower’. Designed by Thomas Tait, the tower was 300ft high, its silvered steel glittered by day and it shone out like a beacon at night. It had three observation balconies, each capable of supporting 200 people. The vane on top of the tower served to counteract wind torque. Erected on the summit of the hill in the very centre of the park, visitors could walk to Tait’s Tower from any part of the grounds in less than 10 minutes.
The story persists that the ‘Tower of the Empire’ was demolished as it might be a landmark for German bombers, but this is an urban myth. The University of Glasgow’s Gilmorehill building was at least as prominent and was not demolished. The order to demolish the tower was actually given in July 1939, three months before the war started, (Glasgow’s Great Exhibitions, P & J Kinchin, White Cockade Publishing). Sadly, the Palace of Art is the only remaining sign of the exhibition today.
Other Events
In 1965 the Royal Air Force held a display at the west side of the park where the leisure centre is now located. The display consisted of six aircraft; Valiant B1 – cockpit section, Hunter F4, Javelin – cockpit section, Chipmunk T10, Gnat T1 Trainer and a Javelin F(AW). In the background the tenements on Paisley Road West and Bellahouston Drive have hardly changed.
Another significant date in the park’s history was the pastoral visit of Pope John Paul II. As part of his pastoral visit to Great Britain, his Holiness celebrated Holy Mass in Bellahouston Park on June 1st 1982. Arriving by helicopter, Pope John Paul II was welcomed by Archbishop Thomas Winning of Glasgow. Around 300,000 people from all over Scotland gathered on a spectacular warm summer’s day to celebrate mass. At the end of the mass the congregation, the biggest crowd ever assembled in Scotland to date sang “Will Ye No Come Back Again?” After his address the Pope was applauded for eight minutes.
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