Medieval Glasgow

The Bell O' The Brae on High Street is reputed to be the scene, in 1297, of a victory by William Wallace and his band over the English forces occupying the Bishop's Castle. Wallace pursued the English Bishop Anthony Beck all the way to Bothwell Castle.

Glasgow Cathedral is the largest, best-surviving medieval cathedral in mainland Scotland. During the Wars of Independence with England (13^th and 14^th centuries), Bishop Wishart successfully petitioned King Edward I of England for permission to use timber from the Royal Forests to repair the cathedral tower. When the English king left the area, the patriotic bishop actually used the timber to make siege engines to attack the English-held Bothwell Castle instead!

The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451 and is the second oldest university in Scotland and the fourth oldest in the UK – only Oxford, Cambridge and Saint Andrews are older. It moved from its original site on the High Street to Gilmorehill in 1870.

A plaque and a gargoyle on the modern student residences of the University of Strathclyde, situated off the High Street, mark the medieval site of the University of Glasgow.


The University of Glasgow on its former High Street site.

Robert Blacader, who was Bishop of Glasgow from 1483-1492, became the first Archbishop of Glasgow and served as Archbishop from 1492 until his death in 1508.

On January 9, 1492, a papal bull was sent by Pope Innocent VIII, which stated that Glasgow was to be made an archdiocese. This meant that Glasgow was the central focus, for the dioceses of Galloway, Argyle, the Isles, Dunblane, and Dunkeld.

The Bishop's Castle, which lay next to Glasgow Cathedral up until the 17^th century, witnessed political turmoil and conflict throughout its history. It had been attacked in 1516 by the Mures of Caldwell and it was garrisoned, against the Earl of Arran by the pro-English Earl of Lennox. During the Reformation it was occupied by French troops and in 1568 besieged by the Earl of Argyll. In 1561, the castle of Glasgow, described as ‘the principal mansioun and duelling place of the bishop thereof', was finally left derelict by the reformation in the 16^th century.


Bishop's Castle and Cathedral

Victoria Bridge now stands at the foot of Stockwell Street where the first Glasgow Bridge was built some time before 1285. It was repaired and rebuilt over the centuries, but it remained the only bridge over the Clyde at Glasgow until 1772.

Ingram Street - today a fashionable shopping street in the Merchant City - started life in the medieval period as the Nether Cow Loan, a lane running along the rear of town properties, which was used to take the townsfolk’s cattle to and from the town’s common grazing lands to the north-west of the burgh.

By the late 15^th century religious and educational buildings were a feature of the medieval High Street leading up to Glasgow Cathedral. The types of buildings which had developed in this period included the Dominican priory, the Franciscan friary and the University of Glasgow.

Candleriggs, another fashionable street in the Merchant City, dates from the 17^th century, when the candle makers were forced to relocate after starting one fire too many in the largely wooden-built town! Their new properties were laid out in what was at the time open green fields, less than 300-metres from the Market Cross.