Thread by @ColonyScotland

GALLOWGATE and the Walkinshaw's (From Calton Mouth TO Calton Entry.) 24/3/23

Later today.

The ground on which the suburb of Calton has been built formed a portion of the lands of Barrowfield.
(map 1778)

The part where the first feus were given off was
known in the fifteenth century as the " Round Akyr,"—a name which continued in the form of the " Round Croft " well into the 1800s.

Previous to the Reformation, this property belonged to the Cathedral, but it was annexed by the Town Council under the Act of 1561, and placed to the credit of the Common Good of the burgh.

For a long period the ground was set in feu for pastoral purposes, and the name of the " Blackfauld " took its origin from this circumstance. Towards the close of the 17th century the lands of Barrowfield were in the possession of John Walkinshaw,
a cadet of the

Renfrewshire family of Walkinshaw of that Ilk, and he projected the building of a village on this part of his estate, to be called Blackfauld. The first building feus were given off by Mr Walkinshaw(more on him later) in 1706, but the feuars did not increase rapidly and when

the Town Council of Glasgow bought the ground in 1724, there were only nineteen feus taken.

tbc

As Walkinshaw had been deeply involved in the Rebellion of 1715, his estates of Camlachie and Barrowfield were forfeited and sold to Glasgow but the Council at that time was not sufficiently farsighted to appreciate the value of the property.

Could they have anticipated the vast extension of the city, these two estates, which are now densely populated, would have made the Glasgow Corporation the wealthiest in Scotland. After holding the ground for six years, and making little advance with it, the Council sold

Barrowfield to John Orr, a Glasgow merchant, receiving the sum of £10,000 for it in 1730.

tbc

The seat of the Walkinshaw's of Barrowfield & Camlachie. The date of the building of Barrowfield House is uncertain but a sun-dial found in the garden was dated 1311. Mary, Queen of Scots is said to have stayed here for one night.

The new proprietor took up the project of erecting
a village on Blackfauld, and proceeded with it energetically. He called its name Calton and had it erected into a burgh of barony under his superiority.

His son and grandson, who succeeded to the estate, still further carried out the extension of the Burgh of
Calton, laying out streets, draining the Calton Loch, and offering special inducements to feuars. The burgh was in possession of a Cross, a Prison, a Burgh Court and

other tokens of civilisation long before its charter as a burgh was confirmed in 1817. The last of the Orrs of Barrowfield was forced to sell his estate in 1788 in consequence of commercial misfortune.

tbc

The original village had a distinctive look. The local potteries supplied building materials for Calton's distinctive brick cottages. They can be seen in this photograph with their white-washed walls and red pantiled roofs.

tbc

He had been elected one of the Town Clerks of Glasgow in 1781, and he retained that office till his death in 1803. Barrowfield was much subdivided after it passed out of the hands of the Orr family ; but the Burgh of Calton retained its corporate existence for many years

and was rapidly extended and built upon.
From Dr Cleland's statistical volume on Glasgow, it appears that in 1819-20 the Calton contained 3458 occupied houses with 15,616 inhabitants, or about one-tenth of the whole population of Glasgow at that time.

It was not possible that a thriving burgh like this,
with an industrious weaving population, and every prospect of unlimited extension, could be allowed to grow up unmolested in the immediate neighbourhood of a great city. In 1832 the parliamentary boundaries of Glasgow were

extended so as to include the Calton on the east and Anderston on the west; and in 1843 the police supervision of Calton was taken over by the city, and this district was absorbed in Glasgow.
.
A little more info on the Walkinshaws' - Clementina (or Clementine) Walkinshaw

(1720-1802), an ardent Jacobite, is best known because of her romantic relationship with Prince Charles Edward Stuart (1720-1788). Their daughter Charlotte (1753-1789) was the only acknowledged child of the "Young Pretender".

During the 17th century Clementina's family acquired considerable wealth in Glasgow as transatlantic traders. At the height of their success the Walkinshaws possessed the lands of Barrowfield and Camlachie and in 1705 Clementina's father, John Walkinshaw (1671-1731), founded

the textile village of Calton.
.
However, John Walkinshaw's religion and politics differed radically from those of Glasgow's Presbyterian and Whig mercantile elite. An Episcopalian and Jacobite, he took an active part in the failed military uprising of 1715.

He was taken prisoner at the Battle of Sheriffmuir, but escaped from Stirling Castle and fled to Europe. The British government pardoned him in 1717 and he returned to Glasgow. Clementina, his youngest daughter, was probably born in Camlachie, but spent much of her youth

in France. Her continental education may have influenced her decision to convert to Roman Catholicism.

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