Castlemilk History

The 'pond' used to go all the way upto the bridge, and beyond. It didn't always have an island, this was introduced in the early 1980's.

At the waterfalls end there used to be a boat hut, some thought this was a hermits home. It was better known as the monkey house as everyone would climb it.

The original bridge was built of wood until the present one was constructed.

The pond was 30 foot deep at one time yet people used to 'curl' on it in the early years of the 1900's.

Some say there was a tunnel from the home leading down to Rutherglen, sorry, NOT TRUE. Geophysics scanned the area and no such tunnel existed, good story though.

Just before the laird passed away he had made a deal to sell land to Glasgow for 'new housing' to counteract the poverty that was rife within the city, but Castlemilk itself was not included in the deal. So when the laird died the house was under 'forced sale' and the plans for new housing was put on hold as WW2 had broken out. During these years the house was used for evacuees.

In 1948 Castlemilk was turned into a 'childrens home' and through it's 20 year service it housed over 5000 kids. One of it's ex-residents described the entry as being surrounded by coats of arms in the stairway' and having a huge fireplace which had a split in the middle (still visible), and if you pulled on one of the swords it would open a secret door that you could escape through.

The 'home' in the 1960's           Young girl at side door         Nurses & boys at front door 

In 1968, it was decided that the home should close. The children were re-house and a caretaker moved in to the top floor for almost a year. It was agreed that the central tower of the building, that was over 500 years old, should be left standing, but there was a comunication breakdown and the whole lot was destroyed. A terrible act on a grand old tower. The stables were spared as they were in use as a plant nursery for Glasgow. The bridge and waterfall were left to fall into a delapitated state.

Although this building was used as a 'care home' many of the children attended local schools, some even stayed weekends with staff working there. Others unfortunate kids were adopted, if there were more than one from the same family they tried to give them all the same foster parents. One boy would run away on a regular basis and at one time made his way to Glasgow centre, boarded a train and travelled to the coast before being discovered and returned to Castlemilk. One ex-nurse told us that some money was put away each week for each child in a post office bank book. They received the money on leaving the 'home' when they were 16.