Hielanman's Umbrella in Glasgow

The Hielanman's Umbrella located in Glasgow is also known as the Highlandman's Umbrella which is actually the platforms for Glasgow Central train station above Argyle Street.

30,000 people from the Highlands of Scotland who did not speak English came to Glasgow to find work and they kept in touch with each other by meeting under the bridge, mostly at weekends.

Ian R Mitchell tells the story of the Hielandman's Umbrella at Central. This is an extract from a book he is currently researching, called Walking through Scotland's History, and is from the chapter entitled, Walking In And Out Of Town. 

Many migrants to the growing urban areas arrived on foot. Before railways, and even afterwards given the cost factor, Highland migrants to Glasgow often walked. The mother of John Maclean, the famous Clydeside socialist, was a victim of the Highland famine in the 1840s, and walked with her mother to Paisley from Corpach near Fort William. Maclean himself was no mean walker, and while a student at the Free Kirk Training College at Trinity on the north side of the city, walked daily there and back from Pollokshaws, at least 50 miles a week. And the Highland community, which in around 1900 represented 5% of Glasgow's population of 1,000,000, and was the largest ethnic group after the Irish, developed its own, semi-institutional forms of urban walking. These along with the Gaelic Churches and Highland Societies, helped maintain a sense of community for the Gael in the initially alien urban environment. 

There is a marvellous piece of Victorian engineering, in riveted cast iron and glass, which carries the railway from Glasgow Central over Argyll Street. 

Recently restored to its original glory, it boasts a plaque denoting that it goes by the name of the Hielanman's Umbrella, though this name appears unknown to younger Glasgwegians. The name resulted from the habit of the Glasgow Gaels meeting there, often conveniently using the bridge as a shelter from the inclement climate, so like that of their own homeland. Glasgow's Gaels predominantly worked either in domestic service in areas like Park Circus, or in the many industries to the north and south of the navigable stretch of the Clyde, for example in the bustling river ferries, known as the 'Skye Navy.' Most also lived in the riparian areas of Govan, Kinning Park, and Partick. The Umbrella was convenient for this littoral, and so too were many of the various Gaelic Churches which the immigrants frequented. 

Although arriving in the city in the era of horse drawn omnibuses and later trams, the Highlander appears only slowly to have given up his or her historically acquired ability to walk. The servant girls of the Park area would meet on their half-day off, and walk together (safety in numbers) out the Great Western Road, to the Botanic Gardens or further. Walking to Church, additionally, was also a Highland tradition, as using other transport was formerly seen as breaking of strict sabbatarian rules. In Glasgow, with places of worship not too distant from dwelling places, and the cost of fares being an extravagance, this tradition continued even into the 1950s, when Gaels from the South Side would walk to Kirks across the river. 

People would meet at the Umbrella between services, for example walking down from St Columba's Gaelic Church of Scotland to the 'Hielandman's', and there swopping gossip and news from the homelands and of urban events. If the weather was fine, various groups would depart from the Umbrella in an urban promenade, in their several directions, returning to exchange more gossip. As well as its Sabbath function, the Umbrella was also used as a weekend evening meeting place, and doubtless many a troth was plighted beneath its girders, as couples 'walked out' -the old phrase showing the traditional link between courtship and walking. 

At its height in the 1920s and 30s, the Umbrella tradition did not survive the social disruption of the war and the blackout, and soon became a fond memory. The educationally successful and upwardly mobile Gael moved away from the banks of the Clyde, and now the greatest concentration of Kelvinside Krofters is in middleclass Milngavie, where the Street is a source of imaginary suburban terrors.

Author: Ian Mitchell (C) 2000
Copyright I.R. Mitchell
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