This was published in the East Kilbride News in April 1997.

Bill Niven wrote: "This set of two articles on Thorntonhall and Braehead was compiled by Douglas Macrae, who has lived in East Kilbride since 1953.

He spent 12 happy years working in Bishop's House, Thorntonhall, for the DSIR (now the NEL). His interests include antiquarian and historical research.

Reproduced by kind permission of

If you seek the history of Thorntonhall, stand by the railway station and look around you.

Nearby are Osborne Crescent and Bishop's Park, named after two local businessmen who influenced the development of the district. Beside you is the railway, built to exploit local industries.

Thornton reflects the former appearance of the area, where hawthorn hedges were interspersed between the farm towns or tons. The Hall is the principal house of an estate.

Early History

Thorntoun was recorded in a Scottish Charter in 1383. Robert II created John Lindsay of Dunrod, feudal superior of many estates in Kilbride. To maintain order and collect rents, the Superior instituted the Baron Court. One such court met on the Hill of Dripps.

Later charters record Warnock's Thornton to the west and Tait's Thornton at the east end. Braehead, named Braehead of Piell in the Sasine Registers, remained as two farm settlements and an Inn until the mid-18th century when a cottage was built beside the quarry.

William Roy's Military Survey 1747-55 shows that Thornton, Thorntonhall and Braehead existed as 100 acre farm. In 1858 a land survey records the farm of Laigh Braehead. Above it, on the Braehead road, was a coaching inn which later served as Mrs Clark's Inn. This building was removed in the early 1960s.

Adjacent to the inn were the first family houses in Braehead, built in the 1840's. The well of Wellknowe Road was situated 150 yards north west of the Hall. Transport to Glasgow was provided by Young of Cadgerhill.

Robert Osborne

Robert Osborne, who was born in Braehead, bought the Hall in 1847. He was a farmer, lime manufacturer and merchant of Kilbride cheese in Glasgow's Candleriggs. He extended the original farmhouse to 15 rooms by 1871, The farm had become a country estate.

In 1880, Osbourne' s attention turned to property speculation. He published his feuing plan of part of the Thorntonhall Estate. Double crescents were envisaged to back on either side of a central spine, now Peel Road. There were to be 107 feus. Only eight houses were built by Glasgow businessmen, with a few estate cottages. Osborne was some years too late with his scheme. The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank had ended the boom years in building.

However, the planned tennis court was laid out. Robert Osborne, the founder of modern Thorntonhall, died in 1884. The hall was let until 1904 when it was bought by Arthur Henderson Bishop.

The Coming of the Railway

IN 1866 the Busby Railway was opened to exploit the Giffnock sandstone quarries and the Busby textile industry. In 1868 it was extended to East Kilbride.

The line was worked by the Caledonian Railway Co. and absorbed by that company in 1882 which, in turn, became part of the London Midland Scottish Railway (LMS) established in 1923.

Thorntonhall station, then called Eaglesham Road, was opened to mineral traffic in 1867 and to passengers in September 1868. Glasgow South Side, at Gushetfaulds, was a 30 minute journey from Thorntonhall.

The station house and the villas on Peel Road were built in the 1870s while the station took its present name in 1877. Thus the district adopted the name of the principal residence and its centre moved to the station.

The station had its own station master, first James Malloch of Blairgowrie and then James Stott of Aberdeen. On the stroke of 10am Stott blew his whistle and daughter Margaret ran down with his tea. The Stotts later ran the post office where Thorntonhall honey was on sale.

Limestone mining and burning became important industries within the district, using itinerant Irish labour. By 1880 it became more cost effective to transport the stone to Glasgow for burning. Abandoned kilns and loading ramps can still be seen and mushrooms were grown at the old mine at Thorntonhall.

Bishop's Move

Arthur Bishop was the son of the founder of Cooper & Co. wholesale grocer. He married Mary McAlpine in 1897 and set up home at Burncroft.

In 1904 he bought the Hall where he maintained an interest in pig breeding. The sties were surprisingly close to the house. He laid out extensive gardens and a floodlit curling rink, powered by his own plant.

He extended the station platform and built his own entrance gate. In the sidings he kept a private rail car which could be hurriedly coupled to the Glasgow train.

The Hall was constructed around a 17th century farmhouse which was divided into a paneled dining room with kitchens to the rear. The front wing contained reception rooms downstairs and bedrooms above.

Bishop's office was at the lower right bow window. At the far end was a library with gallery. At the doorway was a trapdoor leading to a wine cellar and house safe. Inside the door was a concealed ladder which allowed entry to the gallery.

In 1906, Bishop's brother-in-law, William McA]pine, built Ravenscourt. He constructed a golf course and tennis courts in front of the Hall and a squash court and riding stables at the back. There was a sunshine recorder at the golf course. McAlpine left Ravenscourt in 1920.

More building took place in Wellknowe Road, Braehead Road and Peel Road, the latter by speculative builders. Local pilot, Major Geoffrey Moore, made a landing beside Peel Road in the early 1930s. In 1939 Bishop sold Thorntonhall and the advent of World War II in 1939 changed Thorntonhall for all time.

The War Years

WHEN the expected mass bombing of the Clydeside shipyards occurred, the administration of the LMS railway was planned to move to Thorntonhall. Seven flat-roofed concrete blocks were built in the grounds but they were used to store office furniture. Later some wives of Polish soldiers were housed there.

Houses in Osborne Crescent were taken by he army to billet engineering trainees and later, ATS girls were at Homelands. A Saturday dance was held at Beechwood. 

The most exciting event of the war took place on the night of March 13, 1941. A lone German bomber missed its way to its intended target of Clydebank and dropped a stock of seven bombs on the fields between North Hill of Dripps and the railway line. There were no casualties.

Post-War Developments

IN 1947 the Lord President of the Council, Herbert Morrison, decided that the Mechanical Engineering Research Organisation of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research should be located in Scotland.

A site at East Kilbride was agreed in 1948 and one year later staff took over the Hall and its grounds on a temporary basis until the laboratory buildings were built in East Kilbride.

Branch stations of the Building Research Station, the Fuel Research Station and the Transport and Road Research Laboratory were establighed in the wartime concrete buildings.

In 1955 a special laboratory, in which radioactive materials could be stored and used, was built close to the summerhouse, bringing 'The Atom' to Thorntonhall.

Some houses were built in gap sites from 1954. The first major development came in 1959 when Bishop's Park was feud out by the East Kilbride Development Corporation. These half acre plots began the major residential developments that give Thorntonhall its particular style today.

One of the more fanciful meanings attached to the name Thorntonhall was hidden valley. Somehow over the years, the neighbourhood comprising Thorntonhall and Braehead has retained its isolation and tranquility.

Over the last 150 years it has attracted the three magnates, Osborne, Bishop and McAlpine as well as the railway, the armed forces, Government scientists and a new post-1960 community - not an insignificant tally for such a douce place.