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Stretching from the banks of the Clyde, intersecting Dumbarton Road, Danes Drive and ending at the junction with Anniesland
Road is the thoroughfare of Queen Victoria Drive. Constructed in accordance with the Drive’s course are some of Scotstoun’s
oldest surviving houses.
Originally a dirt road known as Turnpike Drive, this route was formed as a drive by the Oswald family in the mid 1800s,
before which time it does not appear on any maps. By the time The Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act 1878 came into force,
turnpikes had begun to be phased out; roads were now the responsibility of town councils and police commissions in the
burghs of Glasgow.
At the turn of the 19th Century the name was changed to “Oswald Drive” as a tribute to its official designers. Thereafter,
this was changed to “Victoria Drive” in honour of the Monarch. The current name, Queen Victoria Drive, has been in use
since the late 1930s. The change of name was concurrent with the change in Scotstounhill’s postcode: from W4 to G13.
This photo, taken in 1913 looking north towards the railway bridge over Victoria Drive, highlights just how rural this area
once was. Only a few houses were built on the left side before the rail crossing under the road.
Scotstounhill was at this time an emerging hamlet – nothing more than a cluster of houses centred on Scotstounhill Station.
These late Victorian homes were constructed during the 1880s by the McIntosh Company of Glasgow after James Gordon Oswald
had feued parts of the Scotstoun estate for such purposes.
In Bartholomew's Gazetteer of 1887, Scotstown [sic] is noted as 'a village with railway station (Scotstounhill),
within Renfrew parish, population is 757.' (Bartholomew, Gazetteer of the British Isles (1887) sh.15).
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