BAILLIESTON AND THE WESTERN PART OF

OLD MONKLAND PARISH.

( From the Third Statistical Account of Scotland)

By the Reverend Robert Inglis, 1952.

p.225

Historical.

Originally one large parish over sixteen miles from east to west and four and a half miles from north to south, the Monklands became two parishes. New (or East) Monkland and Old (or West) Monkland, in 1650. Cosmo Innes has suggested that the ancient parish of Monklands is to be identified with the Badermanoch which occurs in early charters of the Bishopric of Glasgow. The name Badermanoch is not found after 1241 and does not appear at all in the Newbattle Chartulary in which the term Monkland first appears in a charter of 1323.

         Until the Reformation the history: of the Monklands is mainly ecclesiastical and memorials of those days of the monks rule remain in many local place names e.g. Highcross. Kirkshaws, Kirkwood. Crosshill and Laigh  Crosshill. The stone font outside Old, Monkland Church is popularly believed to be a relic of the monk’s. Local archaeologists, however think that more probably it was originally a garden ornament on the neighbouring estate of Rosehall (Douglas Support); certainly, in 1887 an identical font adorned the lawn there.

       Baillieston, as a village, is of recent origin. Pont's map (1596) shows many place names still familiar. Balgedy (now Bargeddie). Barachnye (Barrachnie), Bredishoom (Bredisholm). Coolhill (Cuilhill), Dalduy (Daldowie) and Windy Edge where the modern Mount Vernon stands - for it the old name might well serve still. But where the village of Baillieston now stands there is an. entry which cannot be definitely deciphered (It was Bruntbrom, Burnbrome or similar and referred to Burntbroom farmsteading, this is substantiated from other reliable sources of the period). Even Forrest's map (1816) although it shows Baillieston House, has no Baillieston village, but shows Crosshill as the community adjoining Bredisholm; so Crosshill overshadowed any Baillieston then existing. Indeed the church now known as Baillieston parish church was built as Crosshill church and older people still speak of it by that name. Obviously Baillieston as a village developed as an extension of Crosshill and outgrew it in size and importance, probably taking its name from the Estate of Baillieston. A long quest  for the origin of the name Baillieston has so far proved fruitless, longer searching through un-indexed Registers would be necessary to track down the owner who first gave the estate that name. Was he one of the Baillie’s of Provand? Another Baillieston estate in the parish of Dalserf was certainly owned by a member of that family, a family which for many years from 1522 onwards held estates some 2,000 acres extending from Glasgow Cathedral right out to Provan Hall near our Baillieston. It may well be that the same family owned what is known as Baillieston estate and from that estate the growing village derived its name.

      The defaced entry in Pont's scroll map might conceivably (p.226) be read as “Barony”,  which would almost certainly link Baillieston with the Baillie who held the Canonry and Prebend of Provand (or Barlanark) in the Cathedral Church of Glasgow, having his town house Provand’s Lordship and his country house Provan Hall.

     With Bredisholm we are on surer ground. The name probably goes back to the days when the Cistercians of Newbattle held the Monklands. In the Stewarty of Kirkcudbright there is a Sanct Bredisholm, also called Le Holme de Sanct Brigid, and our local Bredisholm may be regarded as yet another link with St. Brigid or St. Bride, the most popular saint of the early Celtic Church.  Older residents in Baillieston tell of the Lady Well by the river Calder being known, as St.Brigid's Well, a name probably conferred by the Newbattle monks in whose mother abbey of Melrose can still be seen a small chapel that, dedicated to St. Brigid. It is interesting that the Roman Catholic Church in Baillieston is also dedicated to that saint.

      Through the Muirheads, Bredisholm shares in many historical associations. Tradition declares that a family of Muirhead's, were given the lands of Lachope in the parish of Bothwell for slaying the robber Bertram de Shotts. The tradition remains unconfirmed: no record remains of any such charter and the original charters of Lachope were lost when the house was burned in 1570 in retaliation for shelter given by Muirhead to brother-in-law, James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, after the, assassination of the Regent Moray. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, William Muirhead of Lachope was knighted by Robert III. Andrew of Durisdeer  (who has been claimed as a son of Sir William Muirhead) sub-Dean of Glasgow, represented James II at Rome in 1450 and carried through for Bishop Turnbull the negotiations for the founding of Glasgow University. He was in Rome in 1451 when the Bull was granted by Pope Nicholas V and probably carried home to Glasgow the precious document that set up Glasgow University. From 1455 until his death in 1473 he was Bishop of Glasgow. Following the death of James II in 1460, he was a member of the Regency Council and was active in affairs of state; he was several times a Commissioner to treat with England and was one of the ambassadors who negotiated the marriage of James III to Margaret of Denmark. After his consecration as Bishop of Glasgow he assumed the Muirhead arms and he has come down to posterity as Bishop Andrew Muirhead. In the Cathedral of Glasgow he founded the College of Vicars Choral and was responsible for he roofing and adornment of the north side of the nave where the Muirhead arms; three acorns in the bend may still be seen. The same coat of arms appears in Provand's Lordship now the oldest house in Glasgow which formed part of the St. Nicholas Hospital founded in 1471 by the same Bishop Andrew. To this day the Lord Provost of Glasgow is a Preceptor of the now extinct hospital.  A fragment of a ballad in Scott's “Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border” tells of the death at Flodden of John Muirhead of Lachope a grandson of Sir William, in the direct line of descent. Four generations later James Muirhead of Shawfute, son of a cadet of the Lachope family, acquired Bredisholm from the then Bishop of Glasgow and got in 1607 a royal charter (p.227) of confirmation. When, in 1737. Captain James Muirhead of Lachope died without heirs male. The Lachope estates came to the Bredisholm branch of the family and the Muirhead arms of three acorns in the bend were engraved on the new house built at Bredisholm. But again the male line died out and Bredisholm House latterly fell on evil days. After serving for some time as a club house for a golf course it was demolished just over twenty years ago.    

        Modern history, too, records achievements by, later residents in this part of the Monklands. The quiet country village of Baillieston has the distinction of having provided Lord Provosts for both Glasgow (Sir Patrick Dollan) and Edinburgh (Sir William Thomson), and a City Chamberlain (Anthony McMillan for Glasgow. William Thomson, when 24 years of age went to Edinburgh and with a few friends formed a company that ran the first motor bus between Edinburgh and Corstorphine. The first run was on New Year's Day 1906 and the return fare was sixpence. From that beginning was built up the great transport system which was sold in 1949 to the British Transport Commission for £2,600,000 And Baillieston basks in the reflected glory of a young airman, Flight Lieutenant William Reid, who won a V.C. in the Second World War.

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