Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby Fossil » Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:19 am

dry boak wrote:What is the Glasgow alternative nowadays to this abattoir?


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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby glasgowken » Tue Dec 16, 2008 2:14 pm

My school used to get bits from there (eyes, etc) to be cut up in biology lessons :?
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street, 2nd. in Britain to a Shell.

Postby Nosht » Sat Dec 27, 2008 1:00 pm

A tragic tale of bureaucratic incompetence.
Glasgow Corporation Markets Department owned & operated the slaughterhouse & Meat Market as well as the Fish & Fruit Markets. The original plan was to have built one massive joint market on the site of the Jacobs Biscuit works in Gallowgate near the railway sidings but the officials forgot that they had given Jacobs a long lease which they would not surrender, leading to the use of Blochairn for the Fish & Fruit Markets.
The new abbatoir was planned in the 60's & the Corporation was told by the traders at this stage that it was too big as the trend was for people to consume less meat but the prestige of having a brand new EEC standard enterprise blinded them to the future day-to-day operating expense.
From the very start the traders were against this massive development as at the end of the day they would have to pay for it but were completly ignored. As usual various delegations were sent to all parts of the globe at the ratepayers expense to learn from existing systems & what happened ?, yes, the Glasgow one was different from them !! The lairages (holding units for livestock) were far too big (the biggest in U.K. apart from one at the docks on the South Coast), the slaughter line system had a "z bend" instead of a "u bend" to save space/money & this caused many breakdowns when operational & once the building was "topped out" the Corporation turned round & said to the traders "here's your building, now run it". It ended up being run by a holding company comprising the slaughtermen who had no training in running businesses.
The operating costs were enormous & the manager had many of the unused chills leased out to hold butter & other goods. It costed less to have animals slaughtered elsewhere & transported into Glasgow for sale than to have them killed on site.
Eventually the time came for the Meat Market to be modernised & thank goodness money was tight so a very much smaller one was built at Duke Street with a vast reduction in firms trading there.

Regards,

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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby BenCooper » Sun Dec 28, 2008 11:54 pm

For Christmas (my family knows my odd predilictions) I was given a posh brochure from 1912 all about the brand new abattoir - there's loads of fascinating maps and pictures. I'll scan them as soon as I have time...
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby HollowHorn » Mon Dec 29, 2008 1:04 am

Stop fiddling with your fundament & get them posted.
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby BenCooper » Mon Dec 29, 2008 7:08 pm

:) Okay, here's a selection:

Image
Image
Image
Image

Lots more in my Flickr set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cycleologi ... 788726763/
www.transientplaces.co.uk
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby dave2 » Tue Dec 30, 2008 5:03 pm

Doing a quick google for some of the dates etc to do with this topic, I found http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/writ ... sinfkction
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby glasgowken » Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:43 pm

Interesting old badge in the People's Palace.

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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby ross_drew » Mon Feb 15, 2010 3:01 pm

I know this is an old post but I just found it, I explored this place top to bottom before it was demolished. Didn't take many photos but I got plenty of video (hours worth) ...there's a couple minutes of it on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAUqMuqntnU
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby Fat Cat » Mon Feb 15, 2010 5:21 pm

ross_drew wrote:I know this is an old post but I just found it, I explored this place top to bottom before it was demolished. Didn't take many photos but I got plenty of video (hours worth) ...there's a couple minutes of it on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAUqMuqntnU



Always good when old posts are dug up. I remember lorry loads of sheep travelling along Duke Street on their way to slaughter. My granny lived across the road in Dunchatten in a close called the pen before being moved to Whitevale flats.
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby Huggy » Mon Apr 04, 2011 1:32 pm

I believe cattle were also onloaded from railway wagons at the "Cattle Bank" in the Caley railway works in Springburn, then herded down to Duke Street, presumably during the night. It must have been quite a spectacle!
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby Twizzle » Sat Mar 09, 2013 1:42 am

I started work with the railway in the Civil Engineer's office in Blythswood House, not far from the square of the same name. One of my tasks was to compile reports of incidents of sheep and cattle wandering on to or being killed on the railway. Logically, most of the locations were rural, usually on the West Highland line. I was surprised to learn that a cow had been struck by a train at Duke Street, quite some distance from pastures green. It looked rather strange on the register. On enquiring, it appeared that the poor beast had escaped from the abbatoir there. At least it died free....... There was no word if the meat was reclaimed and used.
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby Fat Cat » Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:55 pm

I just discovered my granny lived in 272B Duke Street and it's where my granddad died. I think it was the close next to the abattoir.
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby Caltonboy » Mon Aug 05, 2019 1:42 am

Huggy wrote:I believe cattle were also onloaded from railway wagons at the "Cattle Bank" in the Caley railway works in Springburn, then herded down to Duke Street, presumably during the night. It must have been quite a spectacle!


I remember seeing the cattle trucks along the Gallowgate at nights, feeling sorry for the poor animals as they peered out through the slats of the trucks at me :(
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Re: Glasgow Abattoir Duke Street & Pictures

Postby War Baby » Thu Dec 12, 2019 12:34 pm

In 1958, I was an office boy in the Union Cold Store, 39 Melbourne Street, right next to the Meat Market. I went round the meat market every day delivering lines to each stance. Just for the record, these are the stances I delivered lines to...

S.C.W.S. ….Spence Bros … then, turning left, National Products. (There was always a skip outside their place, with the heads of dead cows - eyes bulging, tongues lolling out of their mouths well over a foot in length: honest!) Turning back, I then came to T.C. Nelson, and then there was James Drummond, ( ….anybody remember Joe McLean?). Next in this row of stances was McLachlan's (...anybody remember "Big Sandy" a real character, larger than life.)

Then came William Weddell and at the very end was Thomas Borthwick & Sons. Returning back down the other row of stances, I can remember Perritt & McFarlane … and here my memory fails me a little bit but there was a stance for Robert Scott and one for Roderick Scott. Then I came back out at Melbourne Street again.

I am 76 now, so I just wanted to leave this record of the names of all the stances that I still remember.
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