A Rose by any other name.
The origin of
the name Shettleston is obscure. Some scholars site the possibility that it
is adapted from a settlement belonging to an offspring of one Sedin in the
13th Century. There is another chain of thought that the name is derived from
the word Sheddans that means a parting or divergence of the roadways. Citing
that part of the town called the Sheddans at the junction of the old and new
Shettleston Roads. However, the new main road through the town was not laid
down until the 1800s. So that location could hardly be a contender for the
title of Shettleston Cross. A much better candidate would have to be at the
top end of Westmuir Street where it meets the Gallowgate and Springfield Road
at what is now called Parkhead Cross. Bear in mind that there was not yet
a park there so there could not yet be a Parkhead. The Reverend J.F. Miller
in his book, Old Shettleston of 1918 concurs with this view.
| He wrote; “We suggest another site, a spot in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, where a road from Rutherglen, crossing an ancient ford of the Clyde, would strike the highway from the south and run into the city. Such a spot would be between present day Parkhead Cross and Camlachie.” |
Others believe it has more in common with the colloquial version of Shuttleston
or Shuttlestown, which is derived from the fact that there was a large boulder
on the ground at the corner of Old Shettleston Road and Darlieth Street on
which local weavers sharpened their shuttles. At the Shuttle Stone! That stone
was still there within living memory only disappearing when the site was cleared
for building of new houses. The Shuttlestone version carries some weight when
a map of 1773 lists the local Parish Church with the title of Shuttleston
Kirk.
In the pages of the Rental Books of the Barony of Glasgow the name is recorded with over forty-eight different spellings. These spelling inconsistencies must have been due the vagaries of phonetic spelling. Until the English language was standardised and William Caxton had perfected his printing techniques the written word was subject to the expertise of the writer. If the name had been encountered previously, then the writer’s memory would serve its purpose. If the writer was new to the post there would be previous records to consult. If the search for a previous entry proved too arduous the only alternative would be to write the name phonetically and that would have to take into account the accent of the speaker and the ear of the writer.
In the introduction to James MacLehose’s ‘Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men’ it is mentioned that, if anyone was choosing a site for a settlement in the area:
“Nature had done her part
that somewhere in our valley a city should one day rise, a great seat
of commerce and manufactures. But Glasgow is not the natural site of
it. Had Alexander, or Seleucus, been founding the emporium of the Clyde,
they would never have chosen for it a spot where the level space was
a marshy strip, and the river channel so choked that a canoe could scarcely
thread its way to the sea. They would have traced their lines lower
down, where the hills drew back and left a broad strath, and where the
river was fairly wide and clear.” |
Obviously, at this time the river in our area was no more than a trickle compared to what it would become in later years.
The ancient version of the name first enters the History books in 1179 when a Papal Bull addressed to the Bishop of Glasgow refers to a “villam filie Sedin” and a later reference mentions Schedinstun. In 1226 a Charter granted by Alexander II to the Bishop of Glasgow prohibits the Provost, Baillies and Officers of Rutherglen from taking Toll or Custom nearer to Glasgow than the “cross of Shedenestun”. This cross has never been pinned down to any one place. Since the nearest bridge over the Clyde was at the foot of the Saltmarket it would have to have been sited at some other place close to where the river could be crossed or forded. This bridge could be discounted as it led directly into the city of Glasgow. Three fordable places have been identified as Bogleshole Ford, Carmyle and Dalmarnock. Carmyle being closer to Shettleston and the Ford closer to Rutherglen, but where was that cross? The ford at Bogleshole was still in use at the start of the 20th Century and there was a notice proclaiming that the ford was still open up to about the year 1910. It was closed after a fatality occurred when a carter was drowned while attempting the crossing with his horse and cart. It is feasible that the traders from Rutherglen would make their way to Glasgow by the shortest route but having forded the Clyde, where would the closest place to Glasgow be without entering the city?
In an article in the St Paul’s Primary School Handbook of 2006 there is the following entry:
Alexander had prohibited the Lanarkshire authorities from levying dues in Glasgow but allowed tolls to be collected at "the cross of Schedenestun", in other words the Toll Cross, where the busy road from Bogleshole Ford and Rutherglen to Falkirk met the Roman road to Glasgow - the Wellshot Road/Tollcross Road intersection to the north and west was Glasgow; to the south and east, the Cistercian Monk Lands of Newbattle Abbey (Dalkeith).
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Was this Schedenestun a village or an area? There are a couple of mentions of 'the district of Shettleston with a town of the same name'. Thomas Waugh* in his history of the area recounts that the town was originally made up of four separate little villages. Low Carntyne that ran from the Sheddans to Wellshot Road, Old Shettleston from Wellshot Road to McNair Street, Middle Quarter from McNair Street to Annick Street and Eastmuir from Annick Street to Fingask Street.
An extract from Charles Ross's Map of 1773 with the Shettleston area at the top. Note the new Shettleston Road has not yet been laid down and the various areas have not been named. Only the Country Houses have been named and, curiously, Shettleston does not seem to have one. Note the name of the Parish Church, Shuttleston Kirk.
The William Forrest map of 1816 shows the line of the new Shettleston Road with Shettleston, Mid Quarter and Eastmuir as separate villages. The Kirk is now simply shown as Kirk. Sandyhills seems to be on the wrong side of the road as we know it today.
Finding the name Shettleston mentioned in the Historical Records is something of a hit and miss affair. It is almost akin to the exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel in his appearances in various guises and in diverse places. “They seek him here, they seek him there”, that is until the name became standardised around the 18th Century. However, long before the appearance of the written word the structure of the place where Shettleston is today was being crafted by the forces of nature.
The coming and going of the various Ice Ages helped to fill the area with matter that would, one day, result in increasing the prosperity of the region. The melting and refreezing of the Polar ice caused fluctuations in Sea Levels in the area as the volume of water increased and decreased over the millennia. The present day height above sea level of the area is around 100 feet in places and the area is surrounded by higher ground on three sides with only the river valley side lower. In some of these areas there are substantial deposits of sand; evidence of shoreline deposits? A Raised Beach, a line representing a former level that the sea reached, was found at Dumbarton that was almost 150 feet above the present day Sea Level. That being so, much of the present ground comprising Shettleston would have been well under water.
In that circumstance there would have been little chance of humans inhabiting the area; if there were any humans around in that era. Any archaeological finds in the vicinity around Shettleston have been unearthed on higher ground. A burial Cairn was unearthed in Sandyhills and there was an example of a Bronze Age Crannog found in the Bishop Loch in Easterhouse which was excavated in 1898. There was also the discovery of flints and arrowheads on the North Shore of the nearby Woodend Loch. Flint isn't natural in this area, so it must have been brought here by man. All of these finds are evidence of human habitation in the higher ground areas around Shettleston. However, when the water level eventually receded it is still doubtful if any human society appeared in the lower valley. The abundance of coal deposits in the area would point to the area being unable to sustain life as we know it until a much later date.
Coal.
The Formation of Coal starts with the accumulation of organic matter (bits of dead plants) in a low oxygen setting such as a peat bog. The organic matter accumulates and forms a bed of peat and then the peat bed gets buried by other sediments and under heat and pressure it begins to transform to a low grade coal, called Lignite. Further heat and more pressure then metamorphose the lignite into Bituminous coal. Even more heat and pressure metamorphose the bituminous coal into a nice, hard, shiny Anthracite. Coal is usually classified into three grades: Lignite, brown coal; Bituminous coal, soft coal; and Anthracite, hard coal. Anthracite is dense, nice and hard, and shiny.
The strata or seams of coal in this area were of different thicknesses, and at various distances from each another. They were all nearly parallel to each other, but not parallel to the surface of the earth, having their dip, as it was termed by colliers, or their decline, towards the river Clyde. From the river the seams rose nearer to the surface of the earth until they cropped out. In the 20th Century coal could be hand picked from the surface at these points and a favourite place amongst Shettleston’s citizens was at the high end of Greenfield. It is remarkable that the seams of coal on the other side of the Clyde had also their dip towards its bed. The strata on the different sides of the river, instead of lying in the same plane, were inclined to each other at an opposing angle. This was apparently due to geological activity in the distant past. The thickness of the seams varied from a few inches to a few feet with the main, workable seams being around five feet thick. Above the coal there was a thin but very rich deposit of ironstone. For a while this was considered to be a useless nuisance but when the Clyde Iron Works were erected in Tollcross, it became a source of wealth, and gave employment to many of the inhabitants of the surrounding areas.