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.
Doug Macdonald is the great-grandson of John McDonald Jnr and Ivan Ruddock is a past-President of the Society. 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 to some of the better known owners over the years.
