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The Story of SteppsOriginsAccording to local tradition, the village of Stepps has only been known as such since 1924, when the railway station was given that name. Before that, it is believed, both station and village had always been known as "Steps Road". Just as "Lenzie" became "Lenzie" precisely on 8th August 1867, when the station was named "Lenzie Junction" by the North British Railway Company (having previously been "Campsie Junction"), so it is assumed that "Stepps" only became "Stepps" when the LMS Railway Company renamed the station, from "Steps Road", on 1st September 1924. The true position is somewhat more complicated. The First Edition Ordnance Survey Map, surveyed in 1858, shows the village name quite clearly as "Steps". The Ordnance Survey Name Book, of the same period, gives the name as "Steps" on the authority of Mark Sprot, the local landowner, also Robert Bankier, the stationmaster, and "Meikleham's Map round Glasgow". The locality is described as follows:
The Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map, surveyed in 1897, also shows the village as "Steps", but there is some evidence to suggest that by this period the locality was commonly referred to as "Steps Road", in line with the station. The Valuation Roll for 1890-91 clearly names the locality as "Steps Road", although there is a suggestion that this refers to the cluster of houses near the railway station, with the wider area round about known as "Stepps" or "Steps". The Ordnance Survey authorities were disinclined to recognize that localities could be named after their railway station; at an earlier date, for example, they had been unwilling to register "Campsie Junction" as anything other than a station, even though popular custom applied the name to the nearby village as well, until 1867. Finally, it is worth remembering that both the established church and the local school were known as "Stepps" from their inception in 1900 and 1902 respectively. Even the station name at Stepps was subject to change from time to time. Certainly, during the 1850s it was "Steps Road", the same as that of the early 1920s. However, there is evidence of some name changing in between these dates. When it was opened by the Garnkirk & Glasgow Railway in 1831 or 1832 it was known as "Cumbernauld Road", although by 1837 it was listed as "Stepps", pre-empting the modern version of the name. Edward Meikleham's map (c.1850) gives the name as "Steps Station". As quoted above, the compilers of the Ordnance Survey Name Book of the 1850s could find no evidence for the origins of the "Stepps" or "Steps" name. The tradition that it is derived from former stepping stones, supposedly over a burn across the main road in the "dip" just west of the present Edward Place, is a strong one, however, and must be taken seriously. The road here is on the line of a turnpike of the 1780s, which would surely have been laid in a competent enough way to cope with the bridging of a small burn. Before then the main road went by way of Laundry Lane (or more probably on an alignment slightly to the west of the lane), across what is now the railway, then eastwards along Whitehill Farm Road and what is now Mount Harriet Drive. More likely the stepping stones would have been laid to negotiate a burn across this old road, possibly near the north end of Laundry Lane. Thomas Richardson's Map of Glasgow (1795) shows a locality "Coshnochsteps" here. The same map shows "Coshnochmoor" a short distance to west, near where Coshneuk Road now runs. According to one old account, a sequence of roughly hewn steps led from the "Statute Labour Road", at the railway crossing, right down to the "Main Road" (i.e. on a line comparable to Laundry Lane), so perhaps a line of steps, longer than was required to cross a burn, was necessary to negotiate marshy ground here. In Yorkshire, long "pannier tracks" of stone paving were laid across the moors, for the use of packhorses. The old road by Mount Harriet would have been maintained by "statute labour"; the later turnpike by income from "tolls". The road known as "Steps Road" was perhaps the old road above described, rather than the turnpike of the 1780s (now Cumbernauld Road). The wording in the Ordnance Survey Name Book of the 1850s clearly suggests that the locality name "Steps" then applied to the triangle of ground bounded by the old road (or "Laundry Lane"), the Cumbernauld turnpike, and the railway. In passing, it should be mentioned that around 1830 the line of the Cumbernauld turnpike here was altered very slightly, to carry it by a bridge over the Gamkirk & Glasgow Railway, then under construction. On the north side of the railway part of the old alignment is still marked by the short stub of "Station Road". Much of the present-day Stepps locality was formerly situated on the Estate of Garnkirk. Gamkirk was owned by the Dunlop family from 1634 until the closing years of the eighteenth century. In 1811 it passed to the Sprot family, who retained it for well over a century, during most of which period it was owned by Mark Sprot or (from 1874) his grandson Alexander (later Sir Alexander) Sprot. In addition to the estate house at Gamkirk, there was another mansion at Mount Harriet, said to have been erected as a "dower house" for Sir Alexander Sprot's aunt, Miss Harriet Sprot. Mount Harriet was often rented out by the Sprots; in 1881, for example, it was occupied by Andrew Symington, a wine merchant. The local farms along the northern fringe of Stepps - Gateside, Hornshill, Auchengree, Whitehill and Stepps (later Steppshill) - were all on the Garnkirk Estate. Most of this farmland had been enclosed during the middle years of the eighteenth century; an advertisement offering the estate for sale, in 1769, describes it as "mostly inclosed" by that date. In 1805 Gateside Farm was said to embrace the lands of that name and those of Easter Whitehill - a total of 280 Scotch acres. That year they had been fertilized with 1,000 carts of Glasgow dung, as well as lime; and over forty acres had "been laid down in good heart with grass seeds", for a crop of hay the following year. A coal and limestone works was located on these lands, at the period. In 1881 the tenant of Whitehill Farm was John Hamilton, "Farmer of 172 Acres all Arable, Employing 3 Men, 2 Girls & 2 Boys". At the same period Stepps Farm was occupied by William Graham, "Farmer of 65 Acres, 55 Arable (wrought by family)". Further west, Coshnochmuir Farm had earlier been one of a number of local farms noted for the growing of flax (the raw material for linen cloth). In 1790 Farmer John Hay received a premium for flax production. To the south of Stepps were the estates of Cardowan and Frankfield and the farms of Craigendmuir and Avenue End. Cardowan Estate was owned by the Jeffreys for a long period. The best-known member of this family was Dr James Jeffrey, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Glasgow from 1790 until 1848. During the 1830s important fireclay pits were opened out on Dr Jeffrey's land at Cardowan. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Frankfield House was occupied by the Glasgow artist, A.S.Boyd, for a period. The home farm at Frankfield was another of the local flaxgrowing farms. The tenant farmer, John Wilson, received a premium for flax production in 1788. Neighbouring Craigendmuir Farm was identified in 1801 as a well-enclosed 150-acre site, favoured by the close proximity of coal and limestone workings. Also in this vicinity were the lochs of Frankfield and Hogganfield, the two joined by an artificial cut, which was marked as "Molendinar Burn" on the Ordnance Survey maps, giving rise to a suggestion that the famous water course genuinely began at Frankfield. The late Jack House, in an article in the Glasgow Evening Citizen of 7th January 1946, dismissed this idea. He claimed that maps he had examined at the City Engineer's Department proved that Hogganfield Loch was the true source of the Molendinar. The Ordnance Survey Name Book of the 1850s described Frankfield as "Low, wet land, part in this [Cadder] parish & part in the Barony parish. This Loch is dry in summer & flooded in winter. There is not, at present, any sign of the ground being drained for cultivation". When the two lochs were frozen in winter, skaters could skate from one to the other along the "Molendinar" cut, although they had to break their momentum to cross the Avenue End Road. A record exists that many young people "sought pleasure on the ice of Frankfield Loch" on New Year's Day 1904, enjoying a spell of sunny weather. Many years earlier, on Monday 7th January 1867, the Glasgow Herald printed a report that during a keen frost on the Saturday before, Hogganfield had been frequented by "a host of skaters and curlers, who, for their rather long walk were rewarded with a magnificent field of ice, as smooth as glass and really delightful for skating purposes". By the Monday, Menzies the Glasgow omnibus proprietor was ready to run a service of horse-buses from the City Omnibus Office to Hogganfield, for the skaters and curlers "should the frost continue". Hogganfield was also an important source of shop-ice for the City of Glasgow. In March 1872 Alexander McAllister, Fishmonger and Ice Merchant of Howard Street and Hamilton Place (Hillhead), notified his customers that his contract for the supply of Hogganfield ice had been cancelled, and that henceforth the only ice he was going to handle would be "Purest Norwegian Lake Ice". Norwegian ice was coming into vogue in the city at that time. Nevertheless, the Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map, of the 1890s, continued to indicate two "icehouses" and an "ice factory" on the northern shore of the loch, and by the turn of the century Stevenson, Duncan & Co., "Manufacturers of ice", were still listed for the Millerston area in the Glasgow Post Office Directory. | |
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