Blythswood Hill
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Blythswood Hill is an area of Glasgow, Scotland.
It lies to the immediate west of the city centre and as the name suggests rises to a plateau before dipping again towards the west end area of Woodlands.
Blythswood Hill represents the westward expansion of the city in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Likened to Edinburgh's New Town, it housed the city's wealthy merchants and shipping magnates in four (or more) floored townhouses. The centrepiece of the area is Blythswood Square, which was originally intended by the Georgian architects and planners of the time to be the "new" centre of the city, and although this is largely true from a geographical standpoint, Royal Exchange Square in the Merchant City area still remains Glasgow's "official" centre.
Blythswood Hill became infamous as the home of Madeleine Smith, a young woman who in 1857 was tried for the murder of her lover Pierre Emile L'Angelier. Although the verdict was Not Proven the story scandalised Scottish society, and is recounted in Jack House's 1961 book Square Mile of Murder.
Today, relatively few people live in Blythswood Hill, it being given over mainly to offices and forming, along with neighbouring Anderston, Glasgow's financial district.
[edit] Notable Buildings
- St. Vincent Street Church (1858-1859) by Alexander 'Greek' Thomson, St Vincent Street. One of Glasgow's greatest buildings and possibly its greatest ecclesiastical building after the Cathedral.
- Blythswood Square (c.1823-1829) by John Brash
- St. Stephen's Renfield Church (1849-1852) by J.T. Emmett, Bath Street
- Elgin Place Congregational Church (1865) by J.J. Burnet, corner of Bath Street and Pitt Street (demolished 2005)
- King's Theatre (1904) by Frank Matcham, Bath Street
