Graeme Smith, Anne Robertson Newton Mearns Through Time

Annotation

With one foot in the countryside and the other connected to the metropolis, Newton Mearns is the southernmost suburb of Glasgow. The parish of Mearns bounds southwards over undulating landscape and moors to Ayrshire, with the slopes of Clarkston and Busby within its northern edge, marked by the River Earn. From Rouken Glen to Fenwick Moor, from castles and mansions to farmlands, fermtouns, and cotton mills, its 800-year history records a fertile area and an ever-increasing population. In the twelfth century, King David I granted lands to Walter Fitzalan, and subsequent landowners built Mearns Castle and Pollock Castle. In the 1700s, they were joined by elegant mansions and estates from Greenbank to Balgray, owned by wealthy Glasgow merchants. Railway travel in the nineteenth century brought more villas, and cars and buses from the 1920s enabled new housing and commercial developments. Today, schools and golf courses abound, the countryside is attractive and the climate is fresh.