St Joseph's, North Woodside

streapadair · St Joseph's, North Woodside

Anyone attend St Joseph's church (N Woodside Rd) or school (Braid St), or familiar with either or both? Needing help with this photo (3/3/74) - my note on the back of the contact sheet reads "St Josephs, ?Grove St", but I'm pretty sure it's not Grove St (def. not the Grove St Institute anyway). So what are these buildings? The nearer has a barrier on the pavement, suggesting a school, while the further looks quite ecclesiastical, with a cross on the apex of the roof, though a bit small for a busy Catholic church.

The brick building has a street name on it, which though not entirely clear looks like 'Manresa Pl.'. This name doesn't appear on any of 5 town plans 1892-1980 I've consulted, but curiously there is a modern Manresa Place, off Braid Square roughly where N Woodside Rd would have been before redelevopment.

Thanks to any old Northwoodsidean who can help with identification.

Fjord

I'm not too familiar with this part of town but I've dug out a pic which may help.

Check your PMs for details

streapadair

Thanks for taking the trouble, Fjord. Great photo, full of interest, and the resolution's fine. Down in the bottom left there's St George's X, the Metropole, and Gardner St with the start of Grove St, but sadly it stops 100 yards or so short of where the buildings I'm looking for are. Sod's Law in action.

Scary

streapadair

The photo? Fjord sent it to me in a pm.

Fjord

streapadair

Please don't go to any undue trouble. Asa last resort I'll include it in a forthcoming 'West & North' set with a plea, and if it's anything like the 'East' stuff somebody will come up with the goods. The collective knowledge of UG is impressive.

Eddy

Sreapadair,
I'm from this area, living here again and do a slide-show/talk on its history but this photo has me stumped.I've asked my brother to have a look at it as his memory is much better than mine.
I've looked through some aerial shots and checked the Ordnance Survey from 1950 for some clues. It could be - he said as if he knew - St Peter's St. as the OS shows a Hall adjoining St Peter's Episcopal Chuch which is next to Grove St Primary.
Manressa Place isn't shown on this section of the OS but my Street Directory lists it as C.4.Without seeing Fjord's pic I can't see the connection to St George's Rd. and when you refer to Gardner St - do you mean Gladstone St?
I'd be pleased to pass on any snaps I have that might help solve this one.

Eddy

streapadair

Thanks for that, Eddy.

The Gardner St I referred to is St Peter's St, I was looking at the 1892 map and the name changed in the 1920s. Here's a bit of a reprint of a 1929 map, right at the northern edge of it or I would have included more of N Woodside Rd.

As I said, my note at the time named 'St Joseph's', and I think I must have had a reason for this as I was a stranger to your part of town and I'd never heard of St Joseph's, but my notes aren't infallible.

Was Grove St Primary the one at St Peter's/Grove/Balnain Sts? Did it abut directly on to a street the way the one in my pic does? Where would Manresa Place have been - does your Directory state what street/s it ran off?

I'll try to assemble a section of the 1892 map - Sod's Law again, it's right on the junction of 4 different sheets - which may/may not clarify things.

Thanks again for taking the trouble. If you'd like to use the photo in your shows, you're welcome, I can make a full-size file available for you to download.

Scary

Thanks to all who took the trouble to keep this thread going, it`s a bit clearer now

Eddy

I've scanned the OS map from Feb 1950 which might help a bit as it shows the location of the hall and St Peter's Episcopal Church. It loooks like the answer to our wee puzzle but remain open to suggestions. Note though that Manresa Place isn't marked on this though there is a pic on the VM.
I've added a snap of Grove St Primary which was on Balnain St and an aerial shot with said buildings to the bottom right.

Eddy

[url]

[/url]

streapadair

Thanks again Eddy, this is getting interesting. I hesitate to disagree with the local historian, but I'm not convinced about St Peter's. The key to the puzzle is - where exactly was the mysterious Manresa Place?

for this is the sign attached to the building on the far right.

That's a great photo on VM (Manresa Pl was so obscure I never thought to look for it, VM's usually my first port of call in identification matters). It shows an alley leading off Garscube Rd and taking a dog-leg to the left

and the only thing I can see on the 1892 map that fits the bill is MacAdam's Lane which comes out on N W Rd beside St Joseph's. Could that have been an old name for Manresa Place? If so, then the buildings must be St J's Rectory and Church, although I still don't think the latter looks big enough to seat a congregation of 1200.

It's a mystery.

Eddy

Interesting isn't it? I don't think that the buildings in your photo are St Joseph's but they could be St Peter's: St Joseph's was big - 1200 seats as you say - because there was a large Catholic community in the area; St Peter's, well the English church tends towards smaller venues in Scotland -St Mary's Cathedral apart.
Having had another look at the aerial shot, I think it fits with your photo but remain open to persuasion. It might help if Fjord were to post his photo: if he shows me his, I'll show him mine!

Eddy

Sergeant Elvan

Hi streapadair/Eddy.

A very interesting discussion. One thing which I haven't seen mentioned though is that the brick building with the Manresa Place sign is still standing today, virtually unchanged from streapadairs orginal photo. It's currently the Cowcaddens Day Nursery.

The nursery building follows the dog-leg of Manresa Place and gives you a good idea of how the street would have faced Garscube Road. The road itself is used as a car park for new flats built recently on the site of the church. I'd say it's pretty certain that this photo is of St Josephs church and adjacent rectory on North Woodside Road (as was).

Finally streapadair, thank you for all these wonderful images and if you have a "West and North" set up your sleeve it would be eagerly anticipated by everybody!

streapadair

Good Lord, Sergeant, that was something that had never occurred to me. I thought the whole area had been swept away, apart from the Baths (N Woodside Leisure Centre now). I'll take a walk down there tomorrow and see if I can line up a 'Then and Now'. Thanks for the info.

The North and West collection is bit feeble, at least half of it Garnethill, which is still largely intact, only a handful from N Woodside and Maryhill, and nothing at all from Springburn. Advance apologies.

Eddy

How observant am I? Not only do I pass this building several times a week , I did my student placement in it in 1971.
To make up for my stupidity I took a wee walk there after reading Sergeant's post and took the following pics. By the way, my brother called from Oz this morning - he didn't recognise it either.

The first snap should help establish where: looking east with Spiers Wharf to the left. The fourth is looking west with the Cedar St flats in the middle.
The fifth was taken from Garscube Rd and the last is the sign on Garscube Rd.
Eddy

Eddy

I got not one but two confirmations of this today. I bumped into my pal David - a real local historian - who conformed it as St Joe's right away.
I also asked an aquaintance whom I knew to have come from Raglan St to look at the photo: unprompted he declared it to be his old primary, St Joseph's.
Incidentally, I found that the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins - a favourite of mine - had served at St Joseph's while training for the priesthood as a Jesuit and that Manresa Place was named so following the refusal of the old Corporation to rename it with what they considered to be "too catholic" a name - can't recall what that was.
Manresa is in Spain and has close links with St Ignatious, the founder of the Jesuit order.
See the things you learn for Urban Glasgow!

Eddy

streapadair

Good to get it cleared up, Eddy, I knew UG wouldn't let me down. Just one thing - your friend from Raglan St "declared it to be his old primary, St Joseph's.". Does that mean one of the buildings was in use as a school? The school marked on the map was (or would have been - the temporary fencing in the foreground suggests a demolition site) out of picture on my right.

I had come across the G.M.H. connection when first trying to find out about St J's but had forgotten about it. I wonder if he took his trip to Inversnaid during the spell in Glasgow. Be nice to think so.

Eddy

Look forward to seeing what else you have of this area. Anything on the Garscube Rd from the Round Toll to Queen's Cross would be great. I'll post some myself this week.

Eddy

Eddy

In an earlier post I asked, "How observant am I?" Can I change that to...Read below and insert your own phrase.
I was talking to my mother today, mentioned this thread, showed her the pic and she said,"I used to go there."

Eddy

streapadair

Eddy

I'm warming to this one. I went to Woodside Library today for a rumage in the local history box - most libraries have one, ask at the counter - and found this.
It's not a great snap, being a photo of a photo, but it clearly shows the location of the church in relation to the remaining buildings. I'll arrange to have it scanned and posted here.

Eddy

merryhill

Hi just found this board the building is indeed St Joseph's RC Church on Northwoodside Road and the building next to it the chapel house. Just yards in the direction that the wee woman is walking is the playground of St Joseph's Primary School built around 1955/56. It was really quite a large church and could quite easily have seated 1200 the most of its area being in its length. The chapel house was vast and must have at some time accommodated quite a few priests and there was also a hall, in the house that could be used by the parishioners. The church was beautiful with lots of white marble used against a red wall behind the altar and white, solid marble altar rails. As a young mum my kids attended St Joseph's school and a few of us answered a plea for help to clean the church so I was in it twice a week for years right up until it closed. The building itself was in a state letting in water and the damage that comes with that but its fixtures and fittings were beautiful. While the parishioners protested its closure it was the sensible thing to do with falling numbers attending Mass and a modern church will a similar small congregation St Columba's on Hopehill Road suitable for both.

Eddy

Merryhill, thanks for your post, especially with such detail. It's good to have this location confirmed - no religious pun intended - by so many people.
I'm working on a wee page about the Round Toll for UG and have lots of snaps that you'll recognise and , I'm sure, be able to comment on.

Eddy

streapadair

Digger · St Josephs

The photos is of St. Josephs RC church. Right to left St. Joseph's Primary School, - still at Manresa Pl. - which only led to the school door and the parochial halls, it was a dead end. Next is St. Joseph's RC Chapel and Chapel house. There used to be a sweet shop named Lauries or Lorrys beside it.

Facing the chapel house just at work fence you had Braid St, with St Joseph's Boys school on one side and the Girls School on the other.

And I (The Smiths) lived in the first tenement next to St Joseph's Primary.

.

Ronnie

There is a great photograph of Manresa Place in 1925 in the book "Old Glasgow Streets" by Rudolph Kenna (Strathclyde Regional Archives, 1990). The original is in the Glasgow City Archives.

Alex Glass

Hi Ronnie

Long time no see. Hope you are keeping well.