Dave wrote:Anyone know what was at the end of
Viking Way in Thornliebank before the wee housing estate was built there? It seems a bit of over kill to have a 200 metre dual carriage road leading to a relatively small estate slap bang in the centre of a suburb.
BrigitDoon wrote:Old Maps (old-maps.co.uk) 1935 shows a Foundry and "Zenith Works" on the site of the housing estate although no dual carriageway. This may have been added later.
There's an indistinct photograph of the place here:
http://www.sudburymuseums.ca/triangle/d ... 480701.pdfThat should be a good starting point for an investigation. It was the first item returned when I googled for "zenith foundry thornliebank".
Very early on in my career (within the first few months I think and definitely during the first year or so - that would make it circa late '94 / early '95), I helped an older colleague do a level survey of the trunk sewers that pass through the northern end of that housing estate. This was prior to the site being redeveloped for its current residential use; at the time of our survey the site was strewn with thousands of tonnes of demolished brick, concrete, rubble and other waste materials. I don't know what the prior use of the site was but, judging by its post-demolition condition, I would say it was almost certainly industrial in nature. It's possible that the Argus Foundry / Zenith Works that BD has pointed out on the 1935 OS plan may have been what occupied the site prior to its redevelopment into its current use.
A Google search for
“Argus Foundry” led me to this 1969 aerial
photo of Busby railway junction with the Argus Foundry in the foreground.
A Google Search for
“Zenith Works” Glasgow led me to this
PDF extract of The Edinburgh Gazette, dated 19th February 1974; this contains a company listing for
Coca-Cola Bottlers (Scotland & Northern) Ltd., Zenith Works, Boydstone Road, Glasgow. Another search for
“Zenith Works” Thornliebank led me to another
PDF extract of The Edinburgh Gazette, this time dated 20th January 1978, with the same company/address.
I'm 99% certain that no road existed on the line of Viking Way at the time we did our survey so common sense would suggest that it was constructed to serve as the access road into the housing estate. We had to park on Boydstone Road and then traipse through the site whilst lugging our surveying equipment, trying to make our around/over the demolished buildings AND find manholes amongst it all – talk about looking for needles in a haystack!