The exact place in Glasgow which was hit by a METEOR

This part of Glasgow has an interesting story to tell.

Probably the earliest mention of the area is in the 13th century, when King Alexander II granted some land around Glasgow to the bishops that ruled it. This land included “Possele”.

The makeup of the landed estate was initially rather confusing. It was divided into Upper Possil, Nether Possil and Easter Possil, but these lands were unified by the end of the 18th century and sold to Colonel Alexander Campbell – who had fought in the American War of Independence – at the beginning of the 19th.

The Campbells of Possil were not an old, traditional Glasgow family (they were only in the area for three generations before dispersing) but had a big impact.

Alexander’s father John Campbell was both a tobacco lord and a West India merchant, who founded a trading house that dealt in commodities such as sugar. These sugar estates were worth up to £12,000 a year; the equivalent value today, compared to average earnings, would be more than £14 million.

The first meteorite to land in Scotland was found in Possil (Image: Newsquest)

The family was clearly enmeshed in the transatlantic slave trade: Glasgow City Council’s 2022 report into the city’s links to slavery noted that, “the firm’s commercial success was dependent upon the exploitation of enslaved people in multiple colonies, including Grenada and Demerara".

Indeed, one member of the family – the magnificently named Mungo Nutter Campbell – served as the city’s Lord Provost between 1824 and 1825. He was a major enslaver who later claimed £61,393 for enslaved people in British Guiana – equivalent to £53 million today.

READ MORE: Stewart Paterson: How on earth can Possilpark be denied levelling-up funding?

As a result, the Campbell family were able to make improvements to the estate and its mansion house, Possil House, that had stood on the lands since around 1700.

By the mid-1800s, Possil was still an idyllic rural estate, far removed from the smoke and noise of Glasgow. As The Old Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry, published in 1870, put it: “With its beautiful gardens, its grassy slopes, and its clear lake, Possil formed as delightful and retired a country residence as any in the county.”

All this was to change soon after. The land was bought by Walter Macfarlane & Co, the iron founders, who identified the site as a good location for its new ironworks, partly due to its proximity to the newly built railway.

The firm promptly demolished the house and cleared the land – in Thomas Annan’s photograph of Possil House taken in the late 1860s, you can actually see the trees being chopped down to make way for the new development.

Possil House, 1870 (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

Macfarlane’s Saracen Foundry was opened soon after. Although it was a firm of global importance with products shipped across the world, from Singapore to South Africa, perhaps its greatest impact was right on its doorstep.

Saracen Foundry, 1924 (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

The population of Possilpark (as it had been renamed) soared from around 150 in 1868 to more than 7000 just 20 years later, and Macfarlane laid out large parts of the estate as streets and housing to cater for the new arrivals.

The area was annexed by Glasgow in 1891, by which time it had become fully urbanised with a population of more than 10,000.

Possilpark continued to grow at pace and by the outbreak of the First World War it had become a major industrial hub, home to large-scale pottery and paint works, as well as further iron foundries.

Saracen Foundry in the 60s. (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

Between the wars it was the focus of intense housing development as the local authority was empowered to build homes for people displaced when inner-city tenements were cleared. Around 2000 houses were built during this period which contributed much to its character over the ensuing decades.

Still, Possil retains some rural magic.

Between Balmore Road and the Forth and Clyde Canal lies Possil Marsh, a nature reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The marsh is also the site of the first meteorite known to have hit Scotland. The rock landed in 1804 and has been dated at 4.5 billion years old – even older than the oldest known rocks formed on Earth. Possil certainly does have a long history….