An original poster for the Glasgow District Subway displayed in the city's Riverside Museum. This is the third oldest underground system in the world and the only one which has never been extended since it was first built. Opened in 1896, it was also unique as it was powered by a continuous cable running through the tunnels which the carriages gripped on to, meaning there was no soot or smoke from steam engines in the tunnels themselves.
Another clay pipe recovered from the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal in the Maryhill area of Glasgow. A few of these are still turning up, and I was really lucky to find this one decorated with a tall ship a couple of evenings ago.
All that remains of the once castle-like Glasgow Hydraulic Power Works on High Street in Glasgow. Built in 1895, this was part of Glasgow's hydraulic power system. At its peak, in 1908-1909, it supplied 202,141 gallons of high perssure water through 30 miles of heavy duty 7-inch diameter pipes under the city's streets to power industrial machinery.
Metal kerb protector on Waterloo Lane in Glasgow. These were once a common feature of Glasgow streets and stopped cart wheels damanging the kerb stones. They became obsolete when the internal combustion engine and pneumatic tyres replaced the horse and cart, and many have been removed, but they're still relatively common in the back lanes in some parts of the city centre.
A fragment of the old Monkland Canal passing under Castle Street in Glasgow.
Designed by James Watt, the Monkland Canal was completed in 1794 and was built to bring coal from the mines around Monklands into Glasgow. Most of it was filled in in the 1970s when the M8 motoway was built on top of it, but small fragments like this remain.
Standard measures of lengths set into the ground in George Square outside Glasgow City Chambers. These standards were used to ensure that everyone in the city was using the same measures. This was important both for industrialisation and commerce.
This 1850s townhouse overlooking Kelvingrove Park in the west end of Glasgow has an interesting little bit of history attached to it.
In the 1930s, it was home to Archibald Young the professor of Surgery at Glasgow University, and when Albert Einstein visited the city in 1933 to receive an honourary degree, it was here that he stayed.
Police box beside Barrowland Park on the east end of Glasgow. Invented by Charles Eggar, a Glasgow fireman, police boxes first appeared on the city's streets in 1891.
The original signal boxes were hexagonal and made of cast iron by the Macfarlane and Co Saracen foundry. A similarilty in design strongly suggests it was based on a men's urinal already produced it that company.
I've walked, run, driven and cycled up Bryres Road in Glasgow hundreds of times, but only noticed this remnant of Glasgow's long-gone electric trolleybus/tram network for the first time yesterday. It's at the junction with Great Western Road opposite Oran Mor.
The remains of the original Queen Margaret Bridge over the River Kelvin in Glasgow. This cast iron bridge was built in 1870 by John Ewing Walker to provide access between the new neighbourhood of Kelvinside (now referred to as North Kelvinside) which he was developing and the main thoroughfare of Great Western Road on the other side of rhe Kelvin.
If you look up at one of the tenement buildings on the top half of Byres Road in the West End of Glasgow, you'll see it bears the legend Victoria Cross. This seems a bit out of place until you find out that when it was built, Byres Road was called Victoria Street.
Lone Survivor: It always seems rather sad to come across an orphaned tenement which has been left standing when all its neighbours have been demolished. This one is on Keppochhill Road in Glasgow.
One of Glasgow's few surviving stone tramways on Cleveden Crescent Lane in the west of the city. Consisting of slabs of smoothed granite, they reduced the friction between cartwheels and cobbled streets, while the setts in between the tramways provided grip for the horses' hooves. This allowed one horse to pull what it would otherwise take two horses to move.
Four seemingly random Glasgow locations connected by one of the most sensational Scottish murder trials of the 19th Century.
In 1855, twenty year old Madeleine Smith was living with her upper middle class parents at 7 Blytheswood Square (top left) when she met thirty year old Pierre L'Angelier, who at the time was working as a lowly packing clark in a warehouse at 10 Bothwell Street (bottom left).
The former Elder Cottage Hospital in the Govan area of Glasgow. Established by Isabella Elder in the early 1900s, it specialised in treating industrial injuries. The building was designed by J.J. Burnet in a late 17th Century English Renaissance style.
The remains of Carman Hill Fort (probably dating from the iron age some two to three thousand years ago) overlooking the Firth of Clyde from Carman Muir near Renton.
As is typical of iron hill forts, the sites of several other similar hill forts are visible from this location, including Dumbarton Rock, which can be seen in the distance. Incidently, the Dum in Dumbarton comes from dùn, which Gaelic for fort.
Police box on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow. While we now think of police boxes as being blue, in Glasgow red was the traditional colour.
In the days before radios and mobile phones, these boxes allowed patrolling officers to keep in touch with the local station as well as allowing members of the public to contact both the police and the fire bridage in case of an emergency.
The 'An Clachan' Stone in Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow.
Easily overlooked, this stone marks the location of a model Highland village at the 1911 Scottish National Exhibition in Kelvingrove Park. It consisted of traditional Highland blackhouses and but-and-ben cottages; and was inhabited by Gaelic-speakers from the Highlands of Scotland.
The Scottish National Exhibition was the last great exhibition held in Kelvingrove Park
The remains of the railway viaduct running parallel to Osborne Street in Glasgow. This once carried trains from Bellgrove in the east end to the grand Saint Enoch Station in the city centre. Run by the City of Glasgow Union Railway, it formed part of the Saltmarket Junction which operated from 1882 until 1966.
Harland Cottages in Whiteinch, Glasgow. These half-timber Tudor style terraced houses are thought to be over 100 years old and to have been built for those working in the nearby shipyards, which lined the banks of this part of the Clyde. If this is the case, they'd have most likely been for managers, office workers or foremen rather than those working directly on the ships.
I love a good plaque, and without this one few would know of the place Jordanhill Railway Station in the west of Glasgow has earned itself in internet history!
The remains of Dumbuck Crannog on the foreshore of the Clyde near Dumbarton Castle.
Crannogs were man-made islands with a house on them which were connected to the shore by a causeway. The first crannogs appeared Scotland and Ireland around 2,500 years ago, but the Dumbuck Crannog is thought to date from around 2,000 years ago.
Former Grand Central Cinema on Jamaica Street in Glasgow.
This building was originally constructed as a warehouse around 1860. In 1914, the lower three floors were converted into a 750 seat cinema by William B. White. It closed in 1966 and re-opened as the smalller 365 seat Classic Grand in 1973. It finally closed for good as a cinema in 1992.