DOMINATED now by the mighty St Enoch Centre, this city square has had many uses over the centuries, and has seen a variety of Glasgow landmarks come and go.
Back in the 1780s, St. Enoch Square was used as a grazing area for sheep. The railway station opened in 1876, and welcomed many famous passengers including Queen Victoria, who arrived here in August 1888 for the International Exhibition.
St. Enoch Hotel followed in 1879, and with more than 200 bedrooms, it became the city’s largest. It was one of the first public buildings to be lit by electricity.
It was a sad day for many when it closed in 1974. The picture shows Mr Andrew McCann, a hotel porter, putting the ‘closed’ sign at the main entrance.
Back in 1925, our photographers captured the demolition of St Enoch’s Parish Church, which stood in the Square on the site of St Thenew’s Chapel, believed to have stood for centuries before the Reformation.
The site was a car park for many years, before it made way for what the Evening Times’ sister newspaper The Herald called a ‘shopping centre for the nouveau Glaswegian’ with its impressive glass roof and ahead-of-its-time solar panels.
The square was also home to the British European Airways terminal for many years.
In January 1966, the Evening Times reported that it was to close, the day before the new Glasgow airport, Abbotsinch, opened, on May 2.
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The processing of passengers’ baggage, which took place at St Enoch Square, would then switch to the airport and the terminal was to be taken over by the Scottish Bus Group.
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