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Transcript

During the 16th century, the Castle was transformed and became a palatial residence of the Stuart Kings. To be close to the Royal Court, nobles and wealthy merchants established residences in the Top of the Town, and during the 16th and 17th centuries the earlier timber framed buildings of the town were gradually replaced in stone. Many buildings from this period survive including Norrie’s House, Darnley’s House, Spittal’s House, and Cowane’s Hospital.

The Top of the Town: Development

The development of Stirling is inextricably linked to Stirling Castle, which sits on a volcanic outcrop now known as Castle Rock. This easily defensible area has been inhabited for thousands of years.By the 12th century, Stirling had become a Royal Burgh with a marketplace located in Broad Street.

Stirling Castle today, atop the formidable Castle Rock

Stirling Castle and the Top of The Town

Image of an external wooden toilet added to an 18th century building, now demolished. Taken in 1950. Courtesy of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum.

In 1603, King James VI of Scotland was also crowned King James I of England. He promised to return to Scotland every 3 years after his coronation at Westminster, but he only returned once before his death in 1625. Without a monarch and a court, the noble residents of the Top of the Town departed and the area began its slow to decline.However, the population of Stirling continued to increase as Scotland became more industrialised. Stirling was advertised as a healthy alternative to living in cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh, and when Stirling’s Railway Station opened in 1848, travel became much easier. New suburbs were created for the city’s middle classes, and tenements and cottages were built for its less wealthy inhabitants.Despite the increasing wealth of Stirling’s middle classes, conditions in the Top of the Town worsened. By the 1920s the medieval buildings were crumbling after years of neglect and the area had become a densely populated slum.

The Top of the Town: 20th Century

Letter from John Allan to the Stirling Observer, Saturday 17th January, 1914.

‘There are dwellings in Stirling, where in these days of cruelty to animals is forbidden, no one would house a dog, or a horse, if he wished to maintain its health. Fancy infants born, dying and bred up under such conditions?’

John Allan © Dumfermline Carnegie Library and Archive

Architect & Advocate

Stirling architect John Allan (1847-1922) became a vocal advocate for housing improvement and social reform. Around 1883, he published A Practical Guide on Healthy Houses and Sanitary Reform, a book specifically written to be “available for all classes”. He felt that health, of both body and mind, went hand in hand with improved and affordable housing for all.

John Allan:

© The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum

c.1950Bow Street runs up from the bottom left of this image. Demolished and derelict buildings can be seen behind it, in what was a densely populated area.

Stirling Top of Town

Children living in the Top of the Town, c 1930s. Courtesy of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery Museum

On 7th December 1928, Scotland’s first property trust was formed in Stirling. The Thistle Property Trust aimed to restore and refurbish, or in their words ‘recondition', historic buildings in the Top of The Town to create sanitary housing for its inhabitants.The Trust evolved from the Stirling branch of the National Council of Women. This organisation was was founded in 1895 in response to poor working conditions for women at the time. By the 1920s, the NCW had started campaigning for equal pay for women, as well as for all other social issues concerning women. It still exists today as the National Council of Women of Great Britain The President of the Stirling Branch of the NCW, as well as the TPT, was for many years the Lady Kay Blair of Blairdrummond.

The Creation of the Thistle Property Trust

© The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum

Properties owned and reconditioned by the Thistle Property Trust. They were later demolished to make way for modern housing.

Courtesy of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum.

In April 1929, an appeal was launched by the TPT ‘to raise £20,000 for re-conditioning work on old houses’ to ‘roll away the age-old reproach of our miserable slums’. By this date, 500 houses had been built by Stirling Council for low-paid workers, with 88 more ‘planned or nearing completion’, but nothing was being done about the state of existing housing in the Top of the Town.With the help of local architect Eric S. Bell, £2,000 had already been spent by the TPT on the creation of better living conditions for 40 families through ‘reconditioning’ 2+ buildings. They were selective; they did not ‘take over any and every property’, it had to be ‘bad enough to need overhauling’ and also ‘good enough to be worth the effort.’ They believed that ‘such old property when rendered sanitary is better that any new ”flimsy” which can be offered as an alternative’, as the traditional buildings were ‘stronger, less liable to be damaged’, cheaper than constructing new housing, and more convenient as they were located nearer to their tenant’s work. Excerpts from The Scotsman, Monday 29th April, 1929, ‘New Housing Crusade in Stirling’

The work of the Thistle Property Trust

Photograph of Eric S. Bell taken c.1933-1935. Courtesy of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum.

By 1933, the Trust had reconditioned 44 houses, housing 55 people. At this point inhabitants of the Top of the Town were also moving out to newly built council housing, also designed by TPT architect Eric S. Bell (1884-1973). Born in 1884 in Warrington, Bell’s father was Colonel William Bell of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who had been stationed at Stirling Castle since 1881. In 1903, he began working for Glasgow architects John Burnet & Son whilst studying at Glasgow School of Art. During the First World War he served as Captain in the Gordon Highlanders. Post-war, he began practicing as an architect in Stirling. Bell became the architect for the Thistle Property Trust and was the first President of the Stirling Society of Architects. He was also a trustee of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum and a keen etcher. He died at his home in Stirling in 1973 and is buried in the Valley Cemetery in the Top of the Town.

Eric S. Bell & The Thistle Property Trust

In 1939, the TPT and the National Council of Women’s Stirling branch held an exhibition and lecture at Stirling’s Municipal Buildings, celebrating Hill’s centenary as well as the work of the TPT. Miss Katharine M. Curror, who was the TPT’s Property Manager, became Stirling Council’s Property Manager, the first woman to be appointed to this role in Scotland. Katharine Curror died in 1965 and is buried with her mother and father in the Valley Cemetery at the Top of the Town.

The TPT was unusual as it was run by women using the Octavia Hill (1838-1912) method of property management. Octavia Hill was a social reformer and property manager from London. Hill also reconditioned housing for the poor, but she is best known for her pioneering views on property management. She put in place weekly rent collections for tenants and was adamant that this was a job for women only. These visits created positive personal relationships between property managers and tenants.

Women Property Managers

Frank Mears plan for the rebuilding of Baker Street, c.1940. Courtesy of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum.

In the 1930s, pioneering town planner Frank Mears (1880-1953) began work on redeveloping the Top of the Town. The works were completed by his partner Robert Naismith (1916-2004) and Stirling Burgh Architect Walter Gillespie (1913-1983) in the 1950s. The regeneration of the area was focused on providing social housing which followed the lines of the earlier streets. Mears designs incorporated vernacular features like crow-stepped and Dutch Gables, and used traditional materials such as slate.

Frank Mears & Town Planning

Demolished buildings on Broad Street. Darnley’s House, a late 16th to early 17th century townhouse, to the right of the image narrowly escaped demolition. Courtesy of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum.

Despite the efforts of the Thistle Property Trust, Stirling Burgh Council made a compulsory purchase of its properties along with most of the Top of the Town. As a result, many historic buildings were demolished as most of were thought to be beyond saving.

Demolition

Courtesy of The Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum.

The back courts of Broad Street in the process of being demolished. A series of photographs were taken of the buildings being demolished in the Top of the Town in July 1953. They were taken by Alistair Cruickshank on behalf of his father who was Sanitary Inspector for Stirling Burgh.

A view down Broad street today. The restored Darnley’s House can be seen in the centre of the image, just behind a tree.

Whilst the work carried out by Frank Mears and his colleagues in the middle of the 20th century was pioneering, the approach is different from current planning ideas. If it was designed today, a residential area like this would have more mixed-use commercial units on the ground floor, as well as more public green spaces to encourage a vibrant community.

The Top of the Town Today

Stirling Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme Map

In 2021, Historic Environment Scotland awarded Stirling Council with over £1.3 million of funding for a Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS). Through public realm works, walking routes will also be created within the city to improve connections between the commercial and historic centres. The CARS project will build on the work which has been carried out in recent years by Stirling City Heritage Trust and will be completed by March 2027. No doubt, those who set up the Thistle Property Trust in 1928 would be pleased to see that regeneration of the area continues almost 100 years on.

Stirling’s Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme

Funded by
Acknowledgements