The only thing that remains since Dan's walk in Shettleston would be some of the refurbished red sandstone tenements, mind you they would have been black with soot in the 1930's. The triangular tram depot and inspectors office buildings rails and trolley wires are long since gone. All the Factories are long too gone and back then the biggest employer in the area in Dan's day was Beardmores Parkhead Forge which was wound down in the late 70's and demolished in the 1980's. I remember the traffic being stopped regularly as the shunting locomotives moved steel between the East and West sheds on Duke Street. It took years to clear and clean the site and it lay barren for several years before The Forge shopping centre was built under The GEAR (Glasgow Eastern Area Renewal) Scheme and opened in 1988. THE SHEDDENS INN  would have been there as searches suggest it was there since around 1920. Why it was called "Sheddens Inn" and not "Sheddings Inn" I have no idea.

As we travel east on SHETTLESTON ROAD some old maps name it as MAIN STREET and past Shettleston Cross which was the Junction of SHETTLESTON ROAD / WELLSHOT ROAD / DARLIETH STREET (formerly FIRPARK STREET after an old wooded area of Fir Trees) we enter the area Dan refers to as Middlequarter which is an old term for sections of farmland which are subsections of larger areas called Quarterlands and even larger Treens.

We then pass two strangely named streets Vesalius Street, Chester Street. I will go into these two strange names later as they suggest links with Dan's walk.

   Before I leave the Middlequarter it is difficult for us to imagine what Dan was trying to describe to us when he spoke of the old coalmines, some of which were more or less between  OLD SHETTELSTON ROAD and  SHETTLESTON ROAD, what was called Shettleston Main Street. There were 2 actually coalmines in the Middlequarter.

    As we pass the junction of Shettleston Road and Church Road / Killin Street we enter Eastmuir where Dan lived. Although this area has changed considerably, but there would still be enough here for Dan to recognise, The Kirkhouse, The Railway Tavern the Miners Rows, the old graveyard and the tenements "THE STATE" picture house was not built at this time, that was opened in 1937. The Eastmuir Masonic Hall that Dan mentions is still there, and further up passing Gartocher on the opposite side of the road the Old St. Paul's Chapel which I believe is used as a function hall now. Before THE GARTOCHER we know there was a pub there called  was BARROWMANS, but the original building was pulled down in 1937 to widen SHETTLESTON ROAD and the GARTOCHER BAR was built.

     Dan briefly mentions York Terrace, and the red sandstone building still stands there today.

     Beyond this was an area Dan referred to as CROWNHALL and a new private estate has a street that bears that old name. The name probably originates from a stretch of common land which were call Haugh's or Anglicised Hall, and Crown being Common Land owned by the Crown. These Common Haughs were use for crazing of cattle by drovers going to the markets in Glasgow. 

  The North British Railway (NBR)  branched off the main Coatbridge -Airdrie Line just north of Crownhall and this section was named as the Crownhall Line on old railway maps. It ran down to Mount Vernon North station where Dan worked as a signalman.  The NBR railway line that ran through Sandyhills and Mount Vernon was dismantled back in the very early 1960's, as part of the Beecham rationalisation of British Railways. By coincidence I use to work Saturday mornings with Ian Watson lifting the old railway sleepers up on this line which we trucked back to his yard behind the Log Cabin in Crosshill where he and I cut them up for logs through the week and that was hard work for £1 a day. That was in 1966. 

We are now now on Baillieston Road at Sandyhills and at the junction of Sandyhills Road there would again be much that Dan would recognise. Dan mentions the blue and white Glasgow City Boundary sign, and just beyond it was the first bus stop you could alight from an S.M.T. green bus Glasgow outbound, and on the opposite side of the road was the last stop you could board the S.M.T. bus Glasgow inbound. There was the Sherwood Garage and Car sales lot, which I remember as in the 1950's and 60's as a garage and filling station, I actually bough a Cortina from there in 1985. There is still the miners row at Sandyhills across from the Texaco filling station. The old Sandyhills sandstone church is gone and was replace by a modern build in the 1980's. I also remember the Smithy shop Dan mentions behind the Sparrow Castle now The Gables Public House.

     Glasgow websites do not give the origin of the name Sandyhills, they only mention it was the name of an old estate, however the soils in that area were indeed sand and gravel and all the way through to Mount Vernon to the now closed Wester Daldowie / Greenoakhill quarry to the Clyde. The sand and gravel was probably deposited by Ice Age glaciers advancing then retreating between 30,00 to 20,000 years ago and indeed in the main Daldowie Estate just west of the Crematorium stands Chuckie Hill and North of that the alluvial despots of Calderpark which were cause by the the last major glacial period as mentioned in the Calderpark Zoo article. It was called the Late Devensian Glaciation and peaked in the UK around 22,000 years ago and ended roughly 12,000 years ago. 

  Further along The "Earlybraes" field is what might seem a strange name, I believe the name originates from the south facing slope where it got the early sun in the morning. Fields sloping south in other areas are sometimes given the name "Sunnyside". It actually is a term that dates back to Runrigs where south facing Rigs were called Sunnyside. Dan mentions potatoes planted in these fields, I remember them being there too when I used to walk back to Baillieston from the matinee at the Odeon or State pictures when I spend my tram or bus fare on sweets. There is a housing estate there now, built in the mid 70's, and just beyond that they have returned the field beyond the Earlybraes field back to a Birchwood thicket with the Tollcross Burn  (which has also been called the Glenduffhill Burn or Glen-D and the Barrachnie Burn) winding through it. Old maps show that beyond the burn at the bend there was a well. Dan spoke of the Barrachnie Woods and houses being built in it, this must have been the early stages of the building of the the Mount Vernon private housing estate, however old maps show that the woods more or less covered the ground now occupied by Barrachnie Park.

   Dan then speaks of Mount Vernon and he mentions that it was once called "Windyedge" and that its name was changed by George Buchanan after his friend George Washington's estate in Virginia. Another website refutes that claim saying that around the mid 1700's  it was named in honour of Admiral Vernon whom a Mr Boyd may or may not have known. A third suggestion is that it was named after a Mont Vernon in France, and strangely another estate owned by the Buchanan's was named Drumpellier, which in French is the same as Mont Pellier. And to really cap it all we had our very own "The Baux" which is yet another area in France "Les Baux". Could all of this just be pure coincidence? It could be that the French Cistercian Monks who once farmed these lands "The Monklands", named these areas. A strange comment the Headmaster Peter Boa of Baillieston JS School said in history lessons was that he found it strange why several places in the Baillieston area are name after areas in France. Mont Pellier, Mont Vernon, Baux, Breval, Caledonia, la Provanderie (Provand Hall). Could it all just be coincidence?

Dan does not mention anything about Barrachnie Cross, he only mentions that he turned right along the old Mount Vernon Avenue, and it still follows the same line until a point just before the top of the rise of the hill and just beyond the old entrance to the Mount Vernon Estate. Back then it veered east and ran about 300 yards to the Burntbroom Road junction where it split, with Mount Vernon Avenue turning right and heading back to where it runs now. Burntbroom Road swung left, and then turned right passed Burntbroom farm under the NBR Hamilton and Bothwell line and then under the Coatbridge (Caledonian) railway bridges and joined Hamilton Road. I remember this straightened section of Mount Vernon Avenue being built in the early 1960's. There are still traces of the old avenue remaining, you can still see where the kerb stones differ to the right side where the original road turned and headed over to the old three way junction at Burntbroom farm. There are still trees there at this old junction, I remember watching cars driving along the old road when I was a boy in the 1950's sitting on top of the big Garrowhill Brickwork shale bing just east of Burntbroom Farm.

   When Dan reached the old Mount Vernon / Burntbroom junction he commented on the two fine mansion houses in this area, Mount Vernon House would have been to his right, and further over beyond Barrachnie Pit spoil bings, and the trees that surrounded Baillieston House Estate and he mentions "The Major", the Major being one of the Maxwell's who owned the lands of Baillieston, Barrachnie East (called Ladyhill on old Census and Valuation Rolls) and Garrowhill, The term "The Major" he uses is a bit of a puzzle as the only Major Maxwell would have been Major James Maxwell who died in 1833 around 97 years before Dan's last walk! And some 26 years before Dan was even born which suggests it was a walk his father or even grandfather had taken him as a boy as there is simply no other way he would have known that a Major James Maxwell once lived in Baillieston House. The owners after the Major were John Maxwell who was a business man an investor who had investments in mining in the UK (coal and iron) and abroad (gold). He was also a renowned Entomologist, but was not a military man. Then JM Scott-Maxwell JP BSc the owner during Dan's walk who reached the level of Captain in the Royal Engineers in WWI. 

--------------------------------

Next I have added Dan's section on the mansion we knew as The Golden Gates

But the original name of Mount Vernon was called "Windyedge", but in 1758 when it was bought by George Buchanan, one of the Virginia Merchants, builder of the famous Virginia Mansion in town. An ancestor of the Buchannan's of Drumpellier, he built his Country House here, and gave it the name of the estate of his friend, George Washington, which adjoined his own in Virginia, hence Mount Vernon House. But to continue your walk down Mount Vernon Avenue, and two or three hundred yards to your left of the road you see one of the oldest farms in the district owned by the Bairds of Burnt Broom. At the foot of the avenue, the London Road that begins at the Glasgow Cross end at the foot of Mount Vernon Avenue, where the Corporation car runs to Uddingston and Glasgow only separates them, there is a beautiful Mansion, the last house at the foot of the Avenue and about thirty years ago it was christened the "Golden Gates". It has a history. Fifty years ago Mr. Christie, Colonel Buchanan's Land Estate Factor, lived in it. When he left, Mr. Roxburgh, the Proprietor of the Britannia Theatre, Glasgow, bought the house and spent a large amount of money in renovating the whole of the estate with the interior and exterior of the whole surroundings, a beautiful new dyke and costly panels and large gates all which were painted gold, hence it was called the Golden gates. When the Corporation was widening the roads, etc. the dykes, panels, gates etc. were all taken down and replaced many yards back.

------------------------------

  We are down on Hamilton Road now and what a different sight this is now compared to what it was even like in the 1950's, never mind the 1930's. I remember a walk my father used to take me in the 1950's which took us from Muirside Road in Baillieston down the Old Wood Road. We then skirted around the south side of the Maxwell Baillieston House Estate and over to Garrowhill Brickwork, and the site of the old Barrachnie Pit. From here we followed a track down through the brickwork stock yard, then swung right passed the large shale bing from the pit, and then on to Burntbroom Road to the junction where it emerged at Hamilton Road. I remember vividly that this was my first feeling of complete disorientation as we emerged from the Burntbroom Farm Road and in front of me was something I did not expect to see, tramlines, the only tramlines in my world were on Glasgow Road Baillieston, I though we had gone in a circle, yet even as a wee 5 or 6 year or boy knew I had not.

  The Hamlet of Boghall sat on the bend of Hamilton Road just at the junction of Daldowie Road. Broomhouse railway station was also here, however Dan makes no mention of it. I remember the NBR Railway Bridge crossing Daldowie Road and used to shelter under if I got off the bus on Hamilton Road and had to walk up passed the old Mt Vernon dog track under the Caledonian Railway and up the Old Wood Road. I also remember the derelict Boghall terraced houses from when I used to get the red bus Nos 240, 241, 56 over to Motherwell College in 1967. I seem to recall they were finally demolished in 1967.

     Dan doesn't mention walking through Broomhouse ,or mention the very old Mailcoach Inn or on the opposite side of Hamilton Road Bonnie Annie's (re-named The Smugglers Inn around the mid 1960's). The Mailcoach still is one of the oldest Inns in Scotland.

--------------------------------------------

     Dan has now reached his destination "THE SHEDDINGS" roadmeetings that sits between Broomhouse (West), Calderpark (North),  Daldowie (South) and Roundknowe (East). What he would have seen here was, to his right the gates that was the entrance to the Calderpark Estate, directly across the A74 the gates to the Daldowie Estate and the striking Beech tree topped mound of Mount Lockhart which was an Alluvial Mound deposited from the last Ice Age some ~22,000 years ago. Chuckie Hill further into the Daldowie Estate was another Alluvial Mound. There was a small entrance on the South side of the ~50ft high Chuckie Hill, which some websites believe to have been the entrance to what was the Daldowie estate Ice House. I used to dog walk passed this feature in the early 70's and I recall a small plaque saying it was a small place of reflection, a chapel, however at one time in the past it may have been the entrance to an Ice House as it would have been an ideal site for it.

The term "SHEDDINGS" is quite a common term across the the UK including N. Ireland at old road meetings, however in these two locations Shettleston and Broomhouse which had a connecting roads called both named "OLD EDINBURGH ROAD" part of which ~1km became Roundknowe Road when the M73 was cut through the gap where Bredisholm House was in the North Calder Valley, but that original Roman Road ran through, or connected to, another Road where Hamilton Road is and on to Tollcross.