r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	Torran_Toi
Comment	The length of the road argument kind of makes sense, but it only really happens with this particular road. Examples. Thornliebank Road. Nobody refers to the entire stretch of that as being Thornliebank. Another would be Pollokshaws Road. We all know know that road runs through areas other than Pollokshaws. It * used to be * that the naming convention for roads like this was "the road that leads to x" (with the building numbers ascending leading towards x, so you knew if you were heading towards or away from based on the order of numbers). Cumbernauld Road leads to Cumbernauld. Edinburgh Road leads to Edinburgh. Thornliebank Road leads to Thornliebank. Dumbarton Road leads to Dumbarton. Maryhill Road leads to Maryhill. Even ones like Glassford Street, which was the road that led to the Glassford family house. For some reason, though, Maryhill has outgrown its borders and is eating up parts of other areas along the whole length of Maryhill Road. I suspect it's a thing like "Greater Easterhouse". It's quite annoying, or at least, it is to me. I dont know why it annoys me to see areas like Camlachie dissolve or why it matters so much to me that the area boundaries are rigidly respected, but it does. A lot of place names are not accidental and not based on roads, rather they are based on topography. Most of the place names are named after the hills that Glasgow has been built on (hence why the suffix *hill appears so often). Gilsochhill, Ruchill, Cranstonhill, Cranhill, Maryhill, Jordanhill, Blackhill, Firhill, Roystonhill, et al. Modern convention has us making boundaries with roads, but before roads the boundaries for these placesnames would have been the feet of these hills. To a degree (and accidentally somewhat) that's still true. The boundaries deriving from road layouts often stay true to the actual boundary seeing as roads were built along and around the feet of the hills before we started building over and on top of these hills. A couple of other interesting things while we're on the subject... 1. Maryhill Road wasn't always Maryhill Road for the full length of it. It used to be called New City Road, which is now the street name for another street running between North Woodside and the bottom of Garnethill at the Chinatown bit... 2. There used to be a Maryhill Cross. It was the cross where Cowal Road meets Maryhill Road. You sometimes hear some old people call it that (or total fucking geeks on these things like me).
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/ev7c9p/new_2020_simd_map_out_today_amazing_to_see/ffwdmhg/
Created	Wed 29th Jan 2020 11:20am
Status	normal ()

The length of the road argument kind of makes sense, but it only really happens with this particular road.

Examples. Thornliebank Road. Nobody refers to the entire stretch of that as being Thornliebank. Another would be Pollokshaws Road. We all know know that road runs through areas other than Pollokshaws.

It * used to be * that the naming convention for roads like this was "the road that leads to x" (with the building numbers ascending leading towards x, so you knew if you were heading towards or away from based on the order of numbers). Cumbernauld Road leads to Cumbernauld. Edinburgh Road leads to Edinburgh. Thornliebank Road leads to Thornliebank. Dumbarton Road leads to Dumbarton. Maryhill Road leads to Maryhill. Even ones like Glassford Street, which was the road that led to the Glassford family house. For some reason, though, Maryhill has outgrown its borders and is eating up parts of other areas along the whole length of Maryhill Road. I suspect it's a thing like "Greater Easterhouse".

It's quite annoying, or at least, it is to me. I dont know why it annoys me to see areas like Camlachie dissolve or why it matters so much to me that the area boundaries are rigidly respected, but it does.

A lot of place names are not accidental and not based on roads, rather they are based on topography. Most of the place names are named after the hills that Glasgow has been built on (hence why the suffix *hill appears so often). Gilsochhill, Ruchill, Cranstonhill, Cranhill, Maryhill, Jordanhill, Blackhill, Firhill, Roystonhill, et al. Modern convention has us making boundaries with roads, but before roads the boundaries for these placesnames would have been the feet of these hills. To a degree (and accidentally somewhat) that's still true. The boundaries deriving from road layouts often stay true to the actual boundary seeing as roads were built along and around the feet of the hills before we started building over and on top of these hills.

A couple of other interesting things while we're on the subject... 1. Maryhill Road wasn't always Maryhill Road for the full length of it. It used to be called New City Road, which is now the street name for another street running between North Woodside and the bottom of Garnethill at the Chinatown bit... 2. There used to be a Maryhill Cross. It was the cross where Cowal Road meets Maryhill Road. You sometimes hear some old people call it that (or total fucking geeks on these things like me).