The West End of Glasgow is one of the finest and best preserved examples of Victorian town development in Britain. In the elegant terraces, handsome villas, solid tenements and exemplary church buildings, one may see some of Scotland's most splendid Victorian architecture. The varied architectural styles are complemented by mature trees and lush gardens in a picturesque setting of gently sloping hills above the River Kelvin. For generations, the West End has been one of Glasgow's most interesting and most desirable neighbourhoods.
Despite the area's distinguished architectural heritage and widespread popularity, very little has been published on the history of Glasgow's West End. In the last one hundred years, only three monographs have been written about the West End (Partick notwithstanding!), though these three -- J B M Fleming's Kelvinside (1894), H B Morton's A Hillhead Album (1973), and Ann Laird's 1997 work, Hyndland: Edwardian Glasgow Tenement Suburb -- deal specifically with particular neighbourhoods and not the area as a whole. Of course, the West End has featured -- to a limited degree -- in many important Glasgow histories, dissertations and architectural guides, though few of these works ever bother to venture west of Byres Road!
In September 2000, Stenlake Publishing -- Scotland's foremost publisher of local history books -- was pleased to announce the publication of Along Great Western Road, the first major work on the famed West End of Glasgow. Compiled by historian and architectural conservator Gordon R. Urquhart, Along Great Western Road s lavishly illustrated with over 300 archival photographs of the streets, buildings, parks and people of the West End. The photographs -- most of which have never been previously published -- range from a spectacular 1864 panoramic view of "Dowanhill Gardens" all the way to the aftermath of the famous Grosvenor Hotel fire of 1978.
The 320 images contained in Along Great Western Road have been uncovered by Gordon Urquhart over a period of eight years, and many have been shown in his public lectures on the history and architecture of the West End. The illustrations come from a wide variety of archival sources in Glasgow, Edinburgh and further afield. Accompanying the images is a detailed history of the West End in some 65,000 words, examining the development of the area from the early Middle Ages through to the Victorian boom years and ultimately covering the tremendous changes of the postwar period.
This 200-page history book also contains several rare maps, extensive footnotes, a comprehensive index and a sizable bibliography. Along Great Western Road is published in hardcover format only, and will no doubt become a collector's item in due course!!
