Trongate is one of the oldest

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of di ...

s in the

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. Trongate begins at

Glasgow Cross Glasgow Cross is at the hub of the ancient royal burgh and now city of Glasgow, Scotland, close to its first crossing over the River Clyde. As a major junction in the city centre, its five streets run: north up the High Street to Glasgow Cathed ...

, where the steeple of the old Glasgow Tolbooth is situated, being the original centre of

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Glasgow, and goes westward changing its name to Argyle Street at Glassford Street.

History

Previously known as St Thenew's Gait (the way to the supposed site of St Thenew`s burial) it was around the start of the 1500s that the name Trongate first began to be used. The name comes by virtue of a weighbeam erected in the mid-16th century, used for all goods requiring to be weighed for duty reasons, including from early shipping on the Clyde. ''

Tron ''Tron'' (stylized as ''TRON'') is a 1982 American science fiction action- adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer ...

'' is a Scots word of Norman origin for weighing scales. The Trongate was one of the areas which was affected by a large fire on 17 June 1652 which destroyed a third of the town and left around 1,000 families homeless. The fire also affected the areas of

Saltmarket The Saltmarket is a thoroughfare in the City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is a southward continuation of the High Street, running south from Glasgow Cross to the junction with Clyde Street and Crown Street by the River Clyde. It runs past the High Co ...

and Gallowgate. The Tron

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chri ...

was founded as the Collegiate Church of Our Lady and St Anne in 1525 by James Houston. It became a Protestant church after the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

and the tower was added in the late 16th century. The steeple was added in 1628. Most of the building was destroyed by a fire in 1793, only the tower surviving. The current church was built in 1794, separately from the tower. It was substantially redeveloped in the 1980s as the

Tron Theatre The Tron Theatre is located in the corner of Trongate and Chisholm Street, in what was formerly the Tron Kirk which had started as the Collegiate Church of Our Lady and St. Anne in the Trongate area of Glasgow, Scotland. The Tron Steeple stil ...

Trongate was used as a route for the trams of

Glasgow Corporation Tramways Glasgow Corporation Tramways were formerly one of the largest urban tramway systems in Europe. Over 1000 municipally-owned trams served the city of Glasgow, Scotland, with over 100 route miles (160 route kilometres) by 1922. The system closed i ...

until this system was abandoned in 1962. The tramlines were subsequently removed.Brash, Ronald W. (1971). ''Glasgow in the Tramway Ages'', Longman, .

Glasgow Cross railway station Glasgow Cross was a railway station in the city centre of Glasgow. History This station was opened on 1 November 1895 by the Glasgow Central Railway.Butt (1995) It was closed, with the line through Glasgow Central (Low Level), on 5 October 1 ...

was situated at the eastern end of the street between 1895 and 1964 (the tracks – part of the extant

Argyle Line The Argyle Line is a suburban railway located in West Central Scotland. The line serves the commercial and shopping districts of Glasgow's central area, and connects towns from West Dunbartonshire to South Lanarkshire. Named for Glasgow's Argyl ...

– and parts of the station are still present below ground). The Trongate remains a major

bus corridor Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway or transitway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to have much more capacity, reliability and other quality features than a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes ...

for services travelling to and from the east and south-eastern parts of the city (largely along the old tram routes), which use the one-way systems on the Gallowgate and London Road but merge at Glasgow Cross.

References

{{Transport in Glasgow Streets in Glasgow History of Glasgow