Parkhead

Parkhead is a neighbourhood in Glasgow. Its name comes from a small weaving hamlet at the meeting place of the Great Eastern Road (now the Gallowgate and Tollcross Road) and Westmuir Street. Duke Street and Springfield Road also meet there, to form a turreted Edwardian five-way junction at Parkhead Cross. Glasgow's Eastern Necropolis was laid out in 1847 beside the Gallowgate. [Elizabeth Williamson, Anne Riches & Malcolm Higgs, The Buildings of Scotland: Glasgow. London: Penguin 1990 ISBN 0-14-071069-8] .

The area flourished with the discovery of coal in 1837 and grew into an industrial centre. In 1897 William Beardmore became famous with the production of high grade steel at the Parkhead Forge, founded about 1837 and extended between 1884 and 1914. After years of decline, the massive plant was closed in 1976, and in 1986 the construction of the first phase of The Forge shopping complex began on the site. The shopping centre opened in the autumn of 1988, and in 1994 an indoor market was added adjacent to it. The final element, a retail park, was completed in three stages between 1996 and 2002.

Belvidere Hospital, built on the Belvidere estate which extended from London Road to the Clyde, originally consisted of wooden huts thrown up rapidly when the city's older fever hospital at Parliamentary Road was overwhelmed by a typhus epidemic in 1870. A self-contained smallpox hospital of five brick pavilions was built from 1874. After this nineteen pavilions of red and white striped brick were set up for the fever hospital. [Magnus Maclean, Archaeology, Education, Medical & Charitable Institutions of Glasgow. Glasgow: British Association 1901.] In recent times, with the general closure of infectious disease hospitals, care of elderly people became its main function.

Parkhead Hospital [Greater Glasgow Health Board Bulletin December 1988] , which opened in November 1988, was said to be the only new psychiatric hospital to be built in Scotland in the 20th century. (However, some 18th and 19th century institutions did move to new buildings during the 20th century.) It was built on part of the old forge land, next to the Parkhead Health Centre, and replaced the psychiatric and psycho-geriatric admission wards of both Duke Street Hospital (formerly known as the Eastern District Hospital) and Gartloch Hospital. Both units moved into the new hospital on the day of a Rangers-Celtic match at the nearby Celtic Park.

Parkhead also has one of Glasgow's original Carnegie libraries, deftly designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by James Robert Rhind.

Parkhead is however best known as the home of Celtic Football Club. Celtic Park, opened in 1888, is located in Kerrydale Street, just off the London Road in Parkhead. The stadium itself is commonly referred to as Parkhead because of its location. The red brick South Stand built in 1929 had the same architect as the similar structure at the Ibrox Park of "Old Firm" rivals Rangers F.C. Parkhead F.C. before its dissolution was arguably the most successful Scottish junior side.

There have been several railway stations in Parkhead.

References