The Hidden Glasgow Forums

Thanks, Icecube, that's one question answered.

Still looking for photographs of the building.......anyone out there got one???

Try the Mitchell photo archive.

Already tried the Virtual Mitchell and Canmore. Running out of options..... anyone got a photo, please?

ibtg wrote:I'm bumping this subject as I am looking for photos of the Golden Gates Hotel / Stakis Mount Vernon Hotel or and / or the building which became the Hotel. Was it a new-build or was it the old house that once stood there converted into an Hotel?

Any pics of the house or surroundings would be appreciated.

I passed that place every day for years, and, as is the way of such things, it never occurred to me to take a photo for that very reason. I apologise.

Wasn't it a children's home? Barnardos or such?

ibtg wrote:Already tried the Virtual Mitchell and Canmore. Running out of options..... anyone got a photo, please?

I meant visit the Mitchell and delve through the photo albums in the Glasgow Room. You might get lucky.

Josef, the building next to it (where the new flats are now, behind the fancy gate with the arch over it) was some kind of children's hospital at one time. That gate does not appear to be connected with the hotel, we think it was originally a house called Oakpark, at 221 Hamilton Road, according to Wiki.

The building which became (thanks, Icecube) the Golden Gates Hotel and later the Stakis Mount Vernon Hotel, was at one time a private house called 'The Cottage' and was inhabited by the lawyer and Estate Land Manager (Mr Christie) of the owner of Mount Vernon House (Buchanan). I think this was all mentioned earlier in this thread. Anyway, also mentioned is the fact that Hubert T. Rossborough (not Roxburgh) the owner of the Britannia/ Panopticon took over ownership of the Cottage and renovated it and the surroundings, putting in beautiful gates and having them painted gold (hence, the Golden Gates). This was at 225 Hamilton Road.

A friend, who is related to H.T. Rossborough, is doing family history research and would dearly love to see what the Cottage looked like, although we know that it will be nothing like a traditional cottage!

Icecube, I will be joining her in the Mitchell next week, so we will both set to looking through their hardcopy photos collections. Thanks for the suggestion.

If my memory serves me correctly the building next to the GG was the Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital but I could be wrong.

There was an annexe of the Sick Kids Hospital in Drumchapel in the mid 70s. Don't know exactly where though.

Going back to the Battles Burn discussion again, the attached photo was taken in the 1950's, and shows the path leading through the woods towards the Mansionhouse Road area. The Battles burn disappeared down under the ground on the left,
just in front of the bushes. Sometimes, especially when it rained, the flow was quite good but usually it was just a trickle. The dark area in the photo marks the line of the burn alongside the bushes. At this point in the woods, the Battles Burn had narrowed and was just a slit in the ground, almost hidden by grass. At the far end of the woods you can just see a wall, and this was the wall belonging to the back gardens of the houses in Mansionhouse Road.

War Baby wrote:Going back to the Battles Burn discussion again, the attached photo was taken in the 1950's, and shows the path leading through the woods towards the Mansionhouse Road area. The Battles burn disappeared down under the ground on the left,
just in front of the bushes. Sometimes, especially when it rained, the flow was quite good but usually it was just a trickle. The dark area in the photo marks the line of the burn alongside the bushes. At this point in the woods, the Battles Burn had narrowed and was just a slit in the ground, almost hidden by grass. At the far end of the woods you can just see a wall, and this was the wall belonging to the back gardens of the houses in Mansionhouse Road.

Your photo (which is another good yin) rather proves what I've said all along about that ditch that ran alongside the western end of the cricket and football pitches. The photo clearly shows the ground sloping away to the west (right in the photo) and the ditch running across the sloping ground. I'm sure you'll agree that a natural water course would follow gravity. Which in this case would be to the right.
This ditch was dug when the pitches were laid out in the early 1950s to drain same after Lanarkshire C.C. purchased the land from the Trustees of Drumpellier Estates.

Only last night I came across definitive proof that the Battles Burn did not originate in the area of the photo and it confirms my earlier claims in previous posts about its origin being waste water from the Mount Vernon collieries.

You'll need to stump up £15 + VAT to see the original entry in the Ordnance Survey Name Books hosted on the Scotlands Places website but here is a verbatim transcript of what is recorded on the Battles Burn.

Lanarkshire Volume 52, page 60 Shettleston parish

The following comes under the column heading;

"Descriptive Remarks or other General Observations which may be considered of interest"

"This Burn rises from Coal Pits on Mount Vernon property, in Old Monkland Parish, It forms the ph. Boundary as far as Auchenshuggle, From the latter to the South Side of the Turnpike Road near Ashcraig it has been covered over & replaced by a Hedge which now forms the Parish Boundary. It flows into the River Clyde from the Turnpike Road, where it again issues, still forming the Boundary of the Parish. The origin of the name is ascribed to a battle fought in the Ph. of Old Monkland. No authentic information can be obtained as to its origin. The name is well known."

http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/

Yes, I agree that the natural water course would be to the west ... or west and south. The burn that runs through Early Braes park from Barlanark is like that.

About the origins of the Battles Burn. Is Vol 52, page 60 saying that the waste water supplying the burn came from the east? I can't see how it is possible. Mount Vernon Avenue would be a barrier. Surely the east-to-west part of the Battles Burn began just a matter of yards to the west of Mount Vernon Avenue... ?

Or do they mean that there was a pit at the foot of the park in the woods? Where could these Mount Vernon collieries be? ...There was an old water-filled mine shaft in a field to the west of Burntbroom Farm (I used to catch frogs in it!) but
it would be too far away to have anything to do with the Battles Burn.

Mount Vernon No. 2 pit was located in the Blackcroft Road area (its waste water went into the Tollcross Burn) and Mount Vernon No. 9 pit was situated behind the shops in Grantlea Terrace on the eastern side of Wester Road. Both were owned by Andrew Buchanan of Mount Vernon.

In the link to the NLS map the No. 9 pit is southerly one, the one I refer to.

http://maps.nls.uk/view/74479108

I have an image from an 1835 estate plan that I'll upload as soon as I've worked out how to do it because Photobucket has changed massively since I last used it.

The original Mount Vernon railway station used to be situated just east of where Central Avenue is now, and the railway line ran just south of the Bowling Green and then crossed a bridge at the junction of Bowling Green Road and Grantlea Terrace, and
there was a coal yard just there, which may have been the last remnants of the pit that you say was at Blackcroft Road.
I remember seeing it, and I have attached a recent map with a cross marked in green where it was. It was right next to the old railway line, probably so that coal could be loaded straight from the yard. ... Thanks for the help in finding these two pits. I always wondered where the Mount Vernon pits were. I have puzzled about it for years. I never thought of that particular area.

The earliest one was situated in the trees to right in the photo you posted above. i had posted a map extract of the location in a previous post on the thread a few years ago but its no longer visible. Thats the one I'm trying to figure out how to re-post by way of Photobucket.

Re Battles burn, I grew up on Mansionhouse Road, Mount Vernon, backing on to Barrachnie Woods. I remember the burn at the football pitches at Barrachnie Park. Whilst there were ocassions the burn would be full, there were also times it was dry. My understanding was this was the equivalent of a drainage ditch. Water would run down the gap between the park and the running track, below the bridge. It would seem the burn was filled in due to too many children falling in.

If this was a natural spring as has been mentioned then why would it dry up and where would the culverts be - through the woods down Mansionhouse Road.

Having played in the woods. I am interested to know if this is where No 1 pot is based, if so, then I’m sure it is located in one of two places. It would be good to learn if anyone knows.

Is it possible Battle burn could originate around Hamilton Road.