Last week I offered the legal origins of the house that I live in with descriptions of the Sasine Register entry and the Feu Ledger entry for No 7 Earlspark Avenue.
Today I am looking at the early editions of the Ordnance Survey maps to try and establish when Earlspark Avenue was created.
Two date-markers that I am certain about are those Sasine and Feu entries. Both are dated 1908, the former is a legal document.
The builder, George Anderson, started paying the Feu duties on all the plots that were mentioned in the Feu Disposition document that I have. There were eight plots of land described in the document that at times are complicated to understand because they are explained in Imperial Measurements of Roods and Poles as well as compass directions. My house, I think I have calculated correctly, was plot number five.
I believe that the corresponding red sand stone villas, 6 in number,on the South side of Earlspark Avenue were built in 1906 because of conversations that I have had with my neighbours. One of them has seen the original deed and it was dated 1906.
Consequently, I think the way that Anderson started acquiring the land was in that order, namely, he bought up the parcel of land along what became Earlspark Avenue on the South side, backing onto the embankment of the Cathcart Circle Railway Line and reaching as far as a footpath that the owner of the Papermill Farm gave right of way to for passengers going to the railway probably in 1904. He would then have to pay Feu duties on this until he had built the houses and sold them off in 1906. At this point Anderson would have bought the parcel of land on the North side, my side, and started paying Feu duties until he was able to sell them off. I am puzzled a bit by the dates however because Agnes Scott was the first purchaser of my house in 1910 and the Sasine Register in Edinburgh received the contract for Feu duties in 1908. What was Anderson doing between 1906 and 1908 ? He was responsible for building all of Earlspark Avenue and I wonder if he had been pursuing the line of the Railway on the South side as far as Kintore Road, or perhaps busy building his own house on Newlands Road.
Nevertheless, I first come across the name of Earlspark Avenue in 1908 in the Feu contract lodged in Edinburgh. The following is the relevant description of my plot of land in the Feu Contract of 1908:
“….in the fifth place all and whole that plot or area of ground containing sixteen poles and three tenth parts of a pole or thereby Imperial Standards Measure bounded on the south south west by Earlspark Avenue to measure forty feet in width along which it extends thirty seven feet or thereby on the west north west by the plot of ground in the fourth place hereinafter disponed along which it extends one hundred and twenty four feet or thereby taken along the centre of a mean boundary wall and range thereof on a line at right angles to Earlspark Avenue on the north east by north by the River Cart along which it extends thirty seven feet six inches or thereby following the bend of the river on the east south east by the plot of ground in the sixth place…..”
The following is a portion of a six inch to the mile Ordnance Survey map published in 1896.
Section of the Ordnance Survey 6 inch to the mile Cathcart map, published 1896. (With permission from the National Library of Scotland).
Between Millbrae Bridge and Papermill Farm is the route of what will become Earlspark Avenue. There are no houses other than a building on the corner facing Langside Road (the original name for what is now Langside Drive). I have not been able to determine if this is the existing pair of semi detached houses currently at the end of my road or whether they were previous buildings. I have a suspicion the latter because my Sasine contract lists eight plots of land and this would sound right because the other remaining plots consist of three sets of two semi detached villas making the total of eight plots listed in the contract. What brings me to this conclusion, that the pair of houses at the end are not the current ones, is that the lane which might appear to be Earlspark Avenue in the future, is too far away from the railway embankment. It was probably just a farm track and not the road as we know it today. Notice also that Riverside Road, the Newlands South Church and all of the Newlands area has yet to be developed. It is all agricultural and farm land.
Section of the Ordnance Survey map 1915 six inches to the mile Cathcart. (With permission from the National Library of Scotland).
Compare this map with the previous. With in the space of just 15 years, the whole of Newlands has been built, Riverside Road has been completed with it Church at the junction with Langside Road. My section of Earlspark Avenue has been completed and I have circled my house. Indeed the remainder of Earlspark Avenue on the other side of Papermill Farm has been completed, as was Cromarty Road (originally spelled Cromartie). Weirs Factory is up and running on the scale that many of us knew up until recently but the land used by Papermill Farm on the bend of the River Cart, has yet to be purchased by Weirs as a beneficial Recreation Ground for it workers. Of course, Papermill Farm would disappear in the 1960’s and be redeveloped into what Earlspark residents call the ‘new houses’.
The property in this second map that has a larger circle is the house that George Anderson built for himself. It is called Arbuthnott and is on Newlnds Road at the corner of the small playing green that leads down to Muirskeith Road.
I now believe that the earliest date for calling my street Earlspark Avenue would be 1906 when George Anderson completed the South side along the railway embankment. Once the road and the house were built and sold, the road name and numbering would then be registered with the Council and the Post Office.
The speed of housing development in the Langside and Newlands area was extraordinary. The building trade was dependent upon most material being sourced locally, such as locally quarried red sand stone. Timber and slate would have to be transported. I wonder how far the railways were used locally for this. There is a large plot of land on the south side of Langside Station that can be seen on the second map which is described as Railway Station. This would have been yard for coal and other minerals. It was probably also a yard for receiving a lot of building materials that were coming by rail. It is now a block of private flats with their car park.