Kilmacolm was a small farming village in the Renfrewshire hills until 1880. That year the railway came through the village .The line ran from Glasgow St Enoch’s station through paisley at Canal Street and on through Bridge of Weir and Kilmacolm and onto Greenoch and Princes pier, now the container terminal
Kilmacolm was thus in easy reach of Paisley and Greenock, and Glasgow was only 30 minutes away. Kilmacolm rapidly developed into one of Scotland’s first commuter towns.
It attracted the professional classes, doctors, lawyers, dentists, and academics from Glasgow University and the Royal College of Science, now Strathclyde University and still does.
It also attracted the successful business class, not the super rich, but the upper management of the great industrial giants such as Coats of Paisley
The house we will see is one built in 1900 for this type of client. Davidson who commissioned Macintosh was comfortably off, but not rich like Blackie who commissioned the Hill House in Helensburgh.
Thus what we will see is a house that your great grandfather might well have built, or your great grandmother may have been a maid in a similar house.
Glasgow at the turn of the 19th century was booming industrially, but what is much less known was that it was one of the epicentres of architecture and design. It was vying with Vienna and Berlin in this respect and Glasgow was held in very high regard in these cities and still is.
I hope that David and I can give you a taste of this turn of the century building and interior design produced in rural Renfrewshire.

This is our first attempt at such a project, so I hope you will not be too critical of our efforts.

The address for any postal enquiries is:

Renfrewshire Family History Society,
c/o 51 Mathie Crescent,
Gourock,
Scotland
PA19 1YU