Neighbourhoods
Duntocher
By David Carson
History often begins with geography, and it was surely the plentiful supply of water from the Kilpatrick Hills via the burns that brought the early settlers to the area. There is evidence of life from prehistoric times around Duntocher. A stone-age axe was found in nearby Carleith and cup and ring markings on rocks a mile or so to the north are thought to be around 5,000 years old.
Romans
The Romans came to the area when they built the Antonine Wall in 142 AD, but they withdrew to Hadrian's Wall around twenty years later. It has been suggested that the village of Duntocher began as a farming community along the line of the Roman Wall, which, after leaving Goldenhill Fort, crossed the Duntocher Burn at the east end of the village before making its way to Old Kilpatrick. It is thought that the name Duntocher is derived from the Gaelic for "causeway fort".
Early Industry
Among the early written records relating to Duntocher is a reference in the Paisley Abbey rental book of 1460, which notes that a corn mill was leased by Thome de Strabrock. The mill was located beside the burn at the east end of the village and it remained in use until 1820. The Roman wall crossed the Duntocher Burn close to the corn mill and the current bridge is still known as Roman Bridge. It is unclear when it was built but in the west parapet, a stone in the style of a Roman distance slab with a Latin inscription, explains that the bridge was repaired in 1772 by Lord Blantyre.
William Dunn, who was born in Kirkintilloch in 1770, trained as a cotton spinner in Glasgow and then spent four years learning iron-turning and machine making. In 1808 he bought the Duntocher Mill and over the next twenty-three years he acquired Faifley Mill, the Dalnotter Iron Works and built Hardgate Mill. He came to own much of the surrounding land and eventually employed nearly 2,000 people in cotton manufacture, agriculture and mining.
The Dalnotter Iron Works was established in Duntocher in 1773 by Glasgow merchants, the name being taken from an earlier works at Dalnotter in Old Kilpatrick. They set up a slit mill in 1771, which used rod iron from the Carron Iron Company of Falkirk. Known as Murdochs Hudson & Co, the firm made a wide range of small tools and agricultural implements, mainly for export to Britain's American colonies. Following the American War of Independence, 1776-1783, the company lost its most valuable market and went into decline. The building was bought by William Dunn in 1813 and rebuilt by him as Milton Mill for the production of cotton. It was destroyed in a fire in 1886 and never rebuilt.
Duntocher Mill spanned the Duntocher Burn to the north of the Great Western Road Bridge. It was built in 1786 for the manufacture of coarse woollens, but it did not prosper and was unoccupied when William Dunn purchased it in 1808. Dunn converted it to produce cotton goods but, like his other mills, it ran into trouble in the 1860s when supplies of raw cotton dried up during the American Civil War. It continued under different owners, making yarn and thread until the 1920s.
The Village
In 1808, the population of Duntocher was less than 200. However, it grew dramatically with the demand for labour in William Dunn's operations. By 1835, 1,400 people were employed in Dunn's mills in Duntocher and neighbouring Hardgate alone. Many of the incomers were from the Highlands and there was a substantial Irish contingent. Both sides of the main street were lined with mostly two-storey houses and the shops which were established in the neighbourhood included grocers, drapers, butchers, newsagents, cobblers, a barber and three wine and spirit merchants. There were two pubs. Duntocher had a library from at least 1828 and a police station in Chapel Road from the 1840s. The Directory of the Parish of Old Kilpatrick and the Burgh of Clydebank of 1893-1894 records forty-three separate businesses in the village.
Duntocher's first public school was opened in 1876. It was bombed during the Clydebank Blitz in 1941 and the pupils had to be accommodated in makeshift huts in the playground until Goldenhill School was built in 1955. Duntocher Hibs Football Club, formed in the 1890s, played on various pitches before coming to Glenhead Park in 1929. Starting in 1925, a single-decker tram service operated between Clydebank and Duntocher. It was replaced by a bus service in 1949.
Religion
The United Presbyterian Church is Duntocher's oldest, the congregation having formed in 1779. There was a split in 1799 with a group moving away to worship in the corn mill. They became known as "the meal kirk folk" but were reunited with the UP congregation in 1869. The present church was built in 1822. Among several notable ministers the Reverend John Stark, who served from 1860 to 1889, was a champion of local education. Duntocher Trinity, the parish church, was built in 1836, the first minister being the Reverend John Pollock. He was replaced in 1838 by William Alexander who, along with most of the congregation, left to form the Duntocher East Free Church at the time of the Disruption in 1843. Duntocher Trinity was destroyed in the Clydebank Blitz but replaced in 1952.
The Irish who came to settle in Duntocher were mainly Roman Catholic, a substantial proportion of them coming from County Donegal. It was mainly to serve them that St Mary's Church was opened in Duntocher in 1841. The church also provided schooling. Within a few years the congregation had grown to around 1,400 so a new church and school were built in 1850. This church was destroyed with Duntocher Trinity during the air raids in 1941. St Mary's School sustained severe damage but was able to resume use of part of the building. The present church, erected on the same site, was opened in 1954.
Recent Times
With the closure of the mills in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of the inhabitants of Duntocher found work in the shipyards and factories in Clydebank. In the Second World War, although severe bomb damage was inflicted on two of the churches and both schools, there were surprisingly few lives lost. In 1960, the population was around 3,000 but an extensive house-building programme saw this rise to more than 4,000 by the end of the 20th century.
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