Easterhouse

Easterhouse is a suburb of Glasgow, Scotland, east of the city centre on land gained from the county of Lanarkshire as part of an expansion of Glasgow before the Second World War. The area is on high ground north of the River Clyde and south of the River Kelvin and Campsie Fells. Building began in the mid-1950s to provide better housing for people in the East End living in sub-standard conditions. At the 2001 Census, its population was 26,495. Neighbourhoods of Easterhouse include Provanhall, Kildermorie, Lochend, Rogerfield and Commonhead, as well as Wellhouse, Easthall and Queenslie which are separated from the other parts by the M8 motorway running east–west through the area. The nearby communities of Barlanark, Craigend, Cranhill, Garthamlock and Ruchazie were constructed using the same building principles and have suffered from similar problems. The remains of crannogs from the Iron Age were found in Bishop Loch, dating from around 700 BC by an archaeological dig in 1898. The Bishops of Glasgow were granted the land on which much of modern Easterhouse was built when the church of Glasgow was elevated into a bishopric in the 12th century. The remains of the Bishop of Glasgow's country palace have been revealed by the West of Scotland Archaeology Service next to Bishops Loch (a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)) at Lochwood. The palace was called Lochwood Castle and was demolished after the reformation to build a mausoleum at nearby Bedlay Castle, which was in turn dismantled and the stones reused as a lodge in the early nineteenth century. Local oral history talks of the Bishops of Glasgow sailing in a Venetian gondola from Glasgow Cathedral to his palace at Bishops Loch. Hogganfield Loch is the source of the Molindinar Burn next to the Cathedral, so some truth may lie in this claim. The Forestry Commission administers land around Easterhouse under the name 'Bishops Estate', thus maintaining a link to the medieval bishops.