Cardonald

Cardonald (Scottish Gaelic: "Cathair Dhòmhnaill") is an outlying suburb of the Scottish city of Glasgow. Formerly a village in its own right, it lies to the southwest of the city and is bounded to the south by the White Cart Water. The area was part of Renfrewshire until 1926 when the villages of Cardonald, Halfway and Crookston and their surrounding farmland were annexed to Glasgow.

In the 15th century the lands of Cardonald were the property of Johannes Norwald or Normanville, Dominus of Cardownalde. His granddaughter and heiress, Marion Stewart (daughter of Isabella Norwald of Cardonald and Sir William Stewart of Castlemilk), married Allan Stewart, establishing the line of Stewarts of Cardonald. The Cardonald Stewarts were a junior branch of the House of Stewart. Allan Stewart of Cardonald, the first Stewart of Cardonald, was the younger son of John Stewart, 1st Earl of Lennox. The Cardonald Stewarts had their seat at the "Place of Cardonald" (also known as Cardonald Castle or Cardonald House), built in 1565. It was demolished and replaced by a farmhouse - Cardonald Place Farm - in 1848.

The line of the Stewarts of Cardonald ended with Allan's great-grandson, James Stewart of Cardonald (1512-1584). He had served as a captain in the Scottish Guards of the Kings of France, and is buried in Paisley Abbey. As he had no issue, the lands of Cardonald passed to his sister's son, Walter Stewart, 1st Lord Blantyre. His family resided at the Place of Cardonald for generations, and retained lands in Cardonald until the 20th century.

In 1926, Glasgow Corporation bought the Cardonald estates, They gave oportunity to private development cottage flats and Council housing in the area. Cardonald was pretty much divided into North and South Cardonald, with the south mostly composed of private rented cottage flats, while the north was made up of private and corporation housing, divided by the new Paisley Road West, including terraced houses, flats, and semi-detached property. In the 1950s, the corporation erected the UK's first high-rise flats in the area. Although only 10 storeys high, the Moss Heights flats were the first of many high-rise blocks to be built in Glasgow overlooking Crookston Castle, and also; Cardonald is also the site of the last ever multistorey blocks of flats to be built in Glasgow, the Bute and Cumbrae towerblocks in Queensland Drive, which were completed in 1967. These buildings have undergone massive renovation works including renewal of the landings, external re-facing, and new lifts.

Cardonald College, one of Scotland's largest further education colleges, opened in 1972, and has rapidly expanded in recent times.

Cardonald has three churches: Cardonald Parish Church (Church of Scotland) (built 1889), Hillington Park (Church of Scotland) and Our Lady of Lourdes Church (Roman Catholic) (built 1938). The district is served by Cardonald railway station on the Inverclyde Line and by numerous bus routes. There is also easy access to the M8 motorway via Junction 25.