Drumchapel (), known locally as 'The Drum', is a district in the north-west of the city of

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. It borders

Bearsden Bearsden ( ) is a town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the northwestern fringe of Greater Glasgow, approximately from the Glasgow city centre, city centre. The Roman Empire, Roman Antonine Wall runs through the town, and the remains of ...

(in

East Dunbartonshire East Dunbartonshire (; , ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. It borders Glasgow City Council Area to the south, North Lanarkshire to the east, Stirling (council area), Stirling to the north, and West Dunbartonshire to the west. East ...

) to the north-east and

Drumry Drumry is a district in the Scotland, Scottish town of Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, split into North and South Drumry by its main thoroughfare, Drumry Road. Some of the housing, including five tower blocks, was refurbished in the early 2010s. ...

(part of

Clydebank Clydebank () is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, it borders the village of Old Kilpatrick (with Bowling, West Dunbartonshire, Bowling and Milton, West Dunbartonshire, Milton beyond) to the w ...

, in

West Dunbartonshire West Dunbartonshire (; , ) is one of the 32 Local government in Scotland, local government council areas of Scotland. The area lies to the north-west of the Glasgow City council area and contains many of Glasgow's commuter towns and villages. ...

) to the south-west, as well as

Blairdardie Blairdardie is a neighbourhood in the Scottish city of Glasgow. It is situated north of the River Clyde in the north-west of the city and is surrounded by other residential areas: High Knightswood, Knightswood, Old Drumchapel, Drumchapel and G ...

Garscadden Garscadden (; ) is a district in the Scottish city of Glasgow. It is situated north of the River Clyde. It lies between Yoker to the west, Scotstoun to the east and Knightswood to the north. It has a train station close to Knightswood shopping c ...

Knightswood Knightswood is a suburban district in the West End Of Glasgow, containing three areas: Knightswood North or High Knightswood, Knightswood South or Low Knightswood, and Knightswood Park. It has a golf course and park, and good transport links wit ...

and

Yoker Yoker () is an area of Glasgow, Scotland, located on the northern bank of the Clyde east of Clydebank, west of the city centre. The name is an Anglicisation of the Scottish Gaelic ''Eochair'' meaning a river bank. From the fourteenth centur ...

in Glasgow to the south; land to the north (including the Garscadden Woodlands) is undeveloped and includes the course of the Roman-era

Antonine Wall The Antonine Wall () was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. Built some twenty years after Hadrian's Wall to the south ...

. The name derives from the Gaelic meaning 'the ridge of the horse'. As part of the overspill policy of

Glasgow Corporation Glasgow City Council (Scottish Gaelic: ''Comhairle Baile Ghlaschu'') is the local government authority for Glasgow City council area, Scotland. In its modern form it was created in 1996. Glasgow was formerly governed by a corporation, also kno ...

, a huge housing estate was built here in the 1950s to house 34,000 people, the land having been annexed from

Dunbartonshire Dunbartonshire () or the County of Dumbarton is a Shires of Scotland, historic county, lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and registration county in the west central Lowlands of Scotland lying to the north of the River Clyde. Dunbar ...

in 1938 – it is this estate that is now most associated with Drumchapel, despite there already being a neighbourhood to the south of

Drumchapel railway station Drumchapel railway station serves the Drumchapel, Blairdardie and Old Drumchapel areas of Glasgow, Scotland. The railway station, station is managed by ScotRail and is served by trains on the Argyle Line and North Clyde Line. It is situated betw ...

known by the same name, made up of affluent suburban villas; this is now known as

Old Drumchapel Old Drumchapel is a neighbourhood of Glasgow, Scotland. It is located around Drumchapel railway station and formed part of the Cowdenhill and Garscadden Estates. It is situated to the south of the larger and newer Drumchapel housing estate, an ...

. Drumchapel is one of the 'Big Four' post-war social housing schemes in Glasgow, along with

Easterhouse Easterhouse is a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, east of the Glasgow city centre, city centre on land gained from the county of Lanarkshire as part of an expansion of Glasgow before the Second World War. The area is on high ground north of the Ri ...

Castlemilk Castlemilk () is a district of Glasgow, Scotland. It lies to the far south of the city centre, adjacent to the Croftfoot and Simshill residential areas within the city to the north-west, the town of Rutherglen - neighbourhoods of Rutherglen#Sp ...

and Greater

Pollok Pollok (, ) is a large housing estate on the south-western side of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The estate was built either side of World War II to house families from the overcrowded inner city. Housing 30,000 at its peak, its population ha ...

. All are similar in terms of architecture and planning, and have tended to suffer from a similar range of enduring social problems, notably

anti-social behaviour Anti-social behaviours, sometimes called dissocial behaviours, are actions which are considered to violate the rights of or otherwise harm others by committing crime or nuisance, such as stealing and physical attack or noncriminal behaviours s ...

and degeneration of often poorly constructed post-war housing. However, the area remains popular with many of its residents and more recently there has been substantial private investment including the construction of new housing developments in the north-west of the district.

History

Drumchapel was part of the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

New Kilpatrick New Kilpatrick, (also known as East Kilpatrick or Easter Kilpatrick) is an ecclesiastical Parish and former Civil Parish in Dunbartonshire. It was formed in 1649 from the eastern half of the parish of Kilpatrick (also known as Kirkpatrick), the ...

, becoming devolved in the late 19th century and a church parish in its own right in 1923. The Old Church (originally serving both Drumchapel and Blairdardie) was built in 1901 for an increasing local population. The parish boundary was redrawn to create the new parish of St Margarets in Knightswood. Civil

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

transferred from New Kilpatrick to Glasgow Corporation in 1938. As part of the overspill policy of

, a huge housing estate was built here in the 1950s. The area suffered a tragedy in 1994 when a double-decker bus carrying a group of local

Girl Guides Girl Guides (or Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) are organisations within the Scout Movement originally and largely still for girls and women only. The Girl Guides began in 1910 with the formation of Girlguiding, The ...

crashed into one of the low rail bridges in the city's

Tradeston Tradeston () is a small district in the Scotland, Scottish city of Glasgow adjacent to the city centre on the south bank of the River Clyde. The name (a portmanteau of "Trades Town") reflected its role as a primarily dockland area with a lar ...

area (the driver was unfamiliar with the route and was being led by a guide leader in a car); two 10-year-old girls, an 11-year-old girl and two adult supervisors were killed in the incident and 15 other children injured, six of them seriously.

Geography

The housing in the area is now 72% post-war tenement and 6% multi-storey flats, the remainder being other flats and houses. The current population was estimated in 2002 at 15,000, which was split across 6,000 households. The population of Drumchapel fell by 22% between 1996 and 2012 to 13,000. The proportion of people in the area from ethnic minority groups increased over the same time to 5%, which remains well below average for Glasgow (12%). Life expectancy in the area is about five years less than the average for Glasgow (male 69 years, female 74 years). Socio-economically, the area is not affluent. In 2011/12, 48% of children were classed as living in poverty, and 57% of the population were

NRS social grade The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey (NRS) to classify readers, but have since been used by many other organisations for w ...

D or E. 56% of households were single-parent. 21% of young people were not in education, employment or training. Just 22% of the population own their own home, about half the average figure for Glasgow.

Economy

The major employers for Drumchapel from the 1950s to the 1980s were the Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Co (GB) Ltd, Beattie's Biscuit Factory, Singers Sewing Machines (Clydebank),

The Edrington Group The Edrington Group Limited, trading as Edrington, is a privately owned international spirits company based in Glasgow, Scotland. It produces single malts such as The Macallan, Highland Park, The Glenrothes, Naked Malt, and The Famous Gro ...

Whisky Bond and the various shipyards on the Clyde. Beattie's Biscuit factory closed in 1978 and the Goodyear and Singers factories both closed in February 1979. The Edrington Group Whisky Bond has grown over the years and is still a major employer in the area, while the shipyards have all gone with the exception of the now BAE Systems yards at Scotstoun and Govan. Drumchapel is now going through its second regeneration, with promises of better schools, better homes and higher employment.

Notable residents

Amal Azzudin Amal Azzudin (born 1990) is an Egyptian-Scottish campaigner and activist who co-founded the Glasgow Girls, a group of seven young women who campaigned against the harsh treatment of asylum-seekers in response to the detention of one of their fri ...

, asylum activistThe Glasgow Girls 15 years on: How seven inspirational schoolgirls sparked Glasgow's social conscience
Glasgow Live, 8 August 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2022 *

Billy Connolly Sir William Connolly (born 24 November 1942) is a Scottish actor, musician, television presenter, artist and retired stand-up comedian. He is sometimes known by the Scots nickname the Big Yin ("the Big One"). Known for his idiosyncratic and of ...

, comedian * Tommy Cunningham, musician * Jim Eadie, politician * Andy Gray, international footballer *

James Kelman James Kelman (born 9 June 1946) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His fiction and short stories feature accounts of internal mental processes of usually, but not exclusively, working class narrators and their ...

, writer *

George Kerevan George Kerevan (born 28 September 1949) is a Scottish journalist, economist, and politician. He was the Scottish National Party Member of Parliament (MP) for East Lothian from 2015, until he lost his seat to Martin Whitfield of the Labour Par ...

, journalist and politician * John MacDonald, footballerA love affair bordering on an obsession
The Herald, 17 August 1996. Retrieved 21 April 2022 *

Christina McAnea Christina McAnea (born 1958) is a Scottish trade union leader. She was elected as general secretary of Unison in succession to Dave Prentis, and took up the post on 22 January 2021. Early life and education Christina McAnea was born in 1958 in G ...

, trade union leader *

James McAvoy James McAvoy (; born 21 April 1979) is a Scottish actor and director. He made his acting debut as a teen in '' The Near Room'' (1995) and appeared mostly on television until 2003, when his film career began. His notable television work inclu ...

, actor *

Danny McGrain Daniel Fergus McGrain (born 1 May 1950) is a Scottish former professional footballer, who played for Celtic, Hamilton Academical and the Scotland national team as a right back. McGrain is regarded as one of Scotland's greatest players and th ...

, international footballer *

Roza Salih Roza Salih (born 1989) is an Iraqi-Kurdish born, Scottish politician and human rights activist. In 2005, at the age of 15, she co-founded the Glasgow Girls with fellow pupils from Drumchapel High School. The Glasgow Girls campaigned to stop the UK ...

, asylum activist *

George Seawright George Seawright (1951 – 3 December 1987) was a Scotland, Scottish-born Unionists (Ireland), unionist politician in Northern Ireland and Ulster loyalism, loyalist paramilitary in the Ulster Volunteer Force. He was assassinated by the Irish Pe ...

, politician and paramilitary in Northern Ireland *

Jim Sheridan Jim Sheridan (born 6 February 1949) is an Irish people, Irish playwright and filmmaker. Between 1989 and 1993, Sheridan directed three critically acclaimed films set in Ireland, ''My Left Foot'' (1989), ''The Field (1990 film), The Field'' (19 ...

, politician *

Sharon Small Sharon Small is a Scottish actress known for her work in film, radio, theatre, and television. Perhaps best known for her portrayal of Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers in the BBC television adaptation of ''The Inspector Lynley Mysteries'' b ...

, actress * Gordon Smith, footballer * Gregor Stevens, footballer * Brian Whittingham, writer * Brian Wright, footballer

References

External links

*
Glasgow West Regeneration AreaOverspill Policy and the Glasgow Slum Clearance Project in the Twentieth Century: From One Nightmare to Another?
article by Lauren Paice,

Oxford Brookes University Oxford Brookes University (OBU; formerly known as Oxford Polytechnic) is a public university, public university in Oxford, England. It is a new university, having received university status through the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Th ...