Springburn Virtual Museum

Springburn in transition

Clearance of land prior to building of Sighthill flats, 1963

This picture was taken in the year after the North British Locomotive Company went into liquidation. Springburn and its environs was now experiencing a period of rapid transformation. Plans were already in place for a new bypass and land was being acquired for this purpose. At the same time, high-rise building was seen as a possible solution to Glasgow's serious housing problem.

Fountainwell, formerly a farm and piggery, was the last remaining fragment of rural land in the area. It was acquired by Crudens Ltd and cleared for the building between 1962-66 of the group of ten tower blocks known as the Sighthill flats.

In recent years a controversy has arisen over whether the flats were built on the old waste dump owned by Charles Tennant's chemical factory, which closed in 1964. This is not true, although the land used for the flats was not particularly good and a special piling machine was required to drive in the 30-foot piles needed for the foundations.

Source: Glasgow City Archives