Wednesday 18th November, 2pm, Park Centre – Barrie Stewart and Phil Wadsley, Birdston, Capieston and Hole Farms and Farmers

The next meeting of the Antiquaries will be on Wednesday 18th November at 2:00 pm in the Park Centre, 45 Kerr Street, Kirkintilloch, G66 1LF. Barrie Stewart and Phil Wadsley will give a talk on Birdston, Capieston and Hole Farms and Farmers.

Many members will be familiar with Birdston, even if it is only by passing through it when going to Milton of Campsie, but probably have never thought about the history of this small community on their doorstep.

The Kelvin valley and its natural floodplain consists of rich soil suited for farming and the type of farming on each farm was largely controlled by the landowners. However, the success of farms anywhere depends on the farmer and this talk explores who these farmers were at Birdston, Hole and Capieston over the centuries. They all had different talents but their main focus was to ensure that their farm remained profitable.

Barrie has a BSc (Hons) Glasgow, Dip Ed (Glasgow) and an MEd (Aberdeen) MReach (Aberdeen). Whilst bringing up a family she still squeezed in a teaching qualification and taught chemistry for 40 years  Her family lived in Birdston from about 1860 until the late 1970s so were in close connection with Birdston.  

Phil, is originally from England but his family moved to Scotland, from the Wirral, when he was quite young, so he had all his formal school education in Scotland, living around all the history, Stone Age, Romans, Wallace, Bruce, James Watt, Kelvin etc. After school he worked in television down south before moving back to Scotland to work for the BBC. Now retired, he is very involved with Campsie Local History Group, KDSA etc.

Thursday 29th October. The Torwood Broch, Larbert by Dr Murray Cook. Park Centre, 7:30pm.

The next meeting of the Antiquaries will be on Thursday 29th October at 7:30pm in the Park Centre, 45 Kerr Street, Kirkintilloch G66 1LF. Dr Murray Cook, Stirling Council's Archaeologist, will give a talk on the Torwood Broch, Larbert.

Brochs are the iconic structure of the Scottish Iron Age with the vast majority on the north and west Atlantic Coasts. However, there is a small subset of them in southern Scotland with the greatest density round Stirling. These so-called Southern brochs have been viewed as associated with the Roman occupation and later built as well as being smaller and more poorly constructed. The Torwood Broch is one of this southern subset. New archive work and excavation on older previously sampled site reveals a much more complex story. 

Dr Murray Cook is from Leith and studied at Edinburgh. He has worked across Scotland and Northern England for 30 years and has over 80 publications. He works as Stirling Council's Archaeologist and is keen to promote volunteering and public engagement with their own past. He runs a weekly blog called Stirling Archaeology.

Torwood Broch. Photo courtesy of Murray Cook

Guided Tour of Glasgow Cathedral, Tuesday 10th November, 11am

Arrangements have now been made for KDSA to have a guided tour of Glasgow Cathedral at 11am on Tuesday 10th November 2026. The guide will be one of the volunteers and the tour will be without charge. The coordinator of the tours has indicated that if there is anything in particular that the group would like to see then could this be flagged as soon as possible.

To register for the tour, please send an email to kdsantiquaries@gmail.com stating the names of everyone in your party. Make your own way to the venue, which can be accessed directly by bus from Kirkintilloch and Lenzie. Meet outside the front door at 10:45am.

Further details will be issued nearer the time. Do not miss this opportunity to see the magnificent cathedral and learn about its long history.

Glasgow Cathedral from the Necropolis

(Photo courtesy Murray Reid)

Thursday 1st October, The Park Centre, 7:30pm. Doug Macdonald and Ivan Ruddock: “From Kerr Street to Bellevue Road via Lenzie - the McDonald Family and their Built Legacy”

Our first meeting of the 2026-27 session will be on Thursday 1st October at 7:30pm in The Park Centre, 45 Kerr Street, Kirkintilloch G66 1LF. Doug MacDonald and Ivan Ruddock will give a presentation on "From Kerr Street to Bellevue Road via Lenzie - the McDonald Family and their built legacy".

John McLew McDonald (1820-1900) and his son John McDonald Jnr (1858-1944) ran a successful house building business in Kirkintilloch and Lenzie through the second half of the 1800s and into the early 1900s. Research has uncovered many houses built by the McDonalds, a few of which were lived in by the family, others which were built for rent or sale. The business built a variety of residential property types, from elegant tenements to grand villas, suitable for the middle and professional classes in the area at that time. They were prolific builders, filling in many streets in the centre of the town including Kerr Street, Victoria Street, and Oxford Street, and consolidating new residential roads like Fern Avenue. Park Avenue, Northbank Road, Bellfield Road and Bellevue Road. Examples of some of their work are shown below.

Benroy, Bellevue Road

Wellwood Terrace

Doug Macdonald is the great-grandson of John McDonald Jnr and was born and raised in Arbroath. After studying engineering at university in Edinburgh, he has had a career in software in the south of England, Germany, and the USA to where he moved 25 years ago. Ivan Ruddock is a past-President of the Society and lives in a house built by the McDonalds in the late 1800s. Together they will present the history of the McDonald family and highlight many of the properties they built from the late 1800s until the 1930s, a period during which Kirkintilloch and Lenzie expanded as centres for industry and commuting respectively. Mention will also be made of some of the better known owners over the years.

The annual membership subscription is £10 and visitors are welcome at all of the Society’s evening events without charge as a ‘taster’.

Dean House

(Photos courtesy of Ivan Ruddock)

Doors Open Day, Saturday 5th September: Exhibition and Guided Walk

As our contribution to Doors Open Day 2026, the Antiquaries will be holding an exhibition in the foyer of the William Patrick Library on "Kirkintilloch Then and Now". The exhibition will feature modern and archive photos of about 20 buildings, monuments and other sites of interest in the town with accompanying text explaining their significance in the history of Kirkintilloch and the people and events associated with them. Sites covered include churches of various denominations, old industrial sites such as the Lion Foundry and the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, civic buildings and monuments such as the Bandstand and Fountain in Peel Park and the War Memorial Gates. Something for everyone in fact. The exhibition will be manned by members of the committee from 10am to 4pm on Saturday 5th September and remain in place, unmanned, until Saturday 12th September.

To accompany the Exhibition, we will be conducting a guided walk around some of the sites on Saturday 5th September at 2pm starting and ending at the William Patrick Library. The sites covered will all be close to the Library. The walk will start from the Library and Black Bull, and continue to St Ninian's church and school, and the Park Centre, via the Auld Kirk, Barony Chambers, War Memorial, Peel Park including the bandstand and the Hudson Fountain. Some of the sites on the walk are shown in the photos below. The walk will be led  by Local History expert and 2026 Community Champion - Arts and Heritage, Don Martin MBE.

Note that registration in advance is required for the guided walk by sending an email to kdsantiquaries@gmail.com. 

We look forward to seeing you at the exhibition and/or guided walk.

Bandstand in Peel Park

War Memorial Gates, Peel Park

St. Ninian's RC Church

Don Martin MBE is East Dunbartonshire Community Champion for Arts and Heritage 2026

Don Martin MBE was presented with a Certificate and Quaich as Community Champion for Arts and Heritage 2026 on Thursday 30th July by East Dunbartonshire Provost Gillian Renwick and Deputy Provost Colette McDiarmid. Details of the presentation can be found on the Council website here.

In May, the Provost and Depute Provost launched the search for this year’s Champions – a call for local people to nominate unsung heroes who go above and beyond to make a difference in the lives of others. Anyone who makes an outstanding contribution through volunteering, fundraising or any other selfless act was eligible. There are six categories for the Champions Awards: Arts and Heritage; Caring; Community; Sports; Sustainability; and Young Champion. More details about the Awards can be found on the East Dunbartonshire Council website here.

Don received the Arts and Heritage Champion award for his lifelong commitment to engaging people with their local history and particularly with a number of initiatives to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway earlier in 2026, including an exhibition in the Auld Kirk Museum and the installation of a National Transport Trust Red Wheel at Southbank Marina, the northern terminus of the Railway where cargoes were transferred onto the Forth and Clyde Canal at Kirkintilloch Basin.

Don is presented with the Certificate and Quaich

The Certificate

(Photographs courtesy of Ivan Ruddock)