Calderwood is a neighbourhood of the Scottish new town of East Kilbride, in South Lanarkshire. It lies in its north-eastern area and is one of the largest areas of the town.
Location Calderwood is the second-oldest planned neighbourhood in East Kilbride new town,In Pictures: East Kilbride Memories - Housing of tomorrow, East Kilbride Connect, 24 June 2016. commencing in the early 1950s, shortly after the commencement of The Murray. Most initial residents moved in from condemned housing in Glasgow.East Kilbride - old and new, South Lanarkshire Council It is the town's largest residential area, forming most of the East Kilbride East multi-member electoral ward, which had a recorded overall population of 14,308 in 2019;Electoral Ward: 'East Kilbride East' , Scottish Government Statistics the remainder of the neighbourhood (west of Calderwood Road, east of the Kingsway dual carriageway bypass, including Maxwellton) is in the East Kilbride Central North ward. The one directly neighbouring residential area is St Leonards neighbourhood to the south. Calderwood is divided from the East Mains and Village areas to the west by the Kingsway bypass – there are no direct road-traffic links from this, only two underpasses beneath the road and a footbridge over it.
Boundaries The neighbourhood does not have a traditionally signposted or walled boundary and is simply joined to adjacent residential areas and main roads that form other parts of the early new town. The area is bounded on the north by the A725 Hamilton to East Kilbride Expressway; on the west by the Kingsway; and on the northeast by Calderwood Glen (part of Calderglen Country Park) as far south as the residential streets of Ellisland and Nithsdale. The southern and south-eastern parts of boundary are significantly more convoluted: beginning at the Whitemoss Roundabout, it follows a short part of Calderwood Road before turning east to follow a segregated pedestrian link path south of Deveron Road and Almond Drive. Thence it runs northwards, west of Glen Farrar, bisects Ness Drive, and then follows the boundary of a wooded belt past Glen Cally before turning to incorporate part of the street of Hazelhead, inclusive of its play area. It then follows the western boundary of Glen Clova as far north as the back boundary of the newer 21st century housing developments. Thence it runs a significant distance eastwards, following a pedestrian back path to meet Morrishall Road. There the boundary runs northwards along the said road before turning eastwards to follow the entire length of Glen Esk, then northwards along St Leonards Road as far as the woodland strip of the Woodhead Burn, which separates the Calderwood streets of Nithsdale and Ellisland from those of Glen Quoich and Glen Derry in St Leonards. St. Leonards Church and School, although falling within the Calderwood Neighbourhood boundary, owe their namesakes to the revived R. C. parish jurisdiction of St Leonards rather than their modern geographical location. It is commonplace to find the casual assumption that most or even all streets south of St Leonards Road, as far east as the boundary of Glen Farrar, are in St. Leonards. Technically, part of Yarrow Park is also in Calderwood, but fell off the jurisdictional radar at an early date as neighbouring developments of the St Leonards neighbourhood encroached upon it.East Kilbride Development Corporation, Master Plan (East Kilbride: Internally published, 1950)East Kilbride Development Corporation, The Eastern Extension Area (East Kilbride: Internally published, 1963)
History The neighbourhood takes its name from the historic Calderwood Estate, whose former lands the neighbourhood mostly occupies. This name in turn derives from an ancient reference to the once extensive woodland adjoining the gorge of the Rotten Calder Water to the east.East Kilbride Development Corporation, Master Plan (East Kilbride: Interally printed, 1950)
The area includes Hunter House Museum at Long Calderwood Farmhouse, once the home of the 18th-century medical and zoological pioneers William and John, who were famous anatomists. In 2011 the museum building was bought by the neighbouring Calderwood Baptist Church and converted into the "Hunter House Cafe", a space for the community and church use. The building and estate had belonged to the Hunter family since the early 18th century, when the family relocated there from their other holding of Calderfield, now occupied by part of Maxwellton village.W. Fraser, The Cartulary of Pollok-Maxwell, 1875, various numbered charter entries. The extant buildings, inclusive of Long Calderwood Row down the hill, date variously from the mid 17th to mid 19th centuries, with a 20th-century extension from the building's time as a museum.
The area adjoins Calderwood Glen along its eastern fringe, which forms the northern section of Calderglen Country Park. The glen was widely praised as a Picturesque and Romantic attraction in the 18th and 19th centuries, and by the early 1900s wa recognised as a renowned beauty spot in the West of Scotland.T. C. F. Brotchie, The Borderlands of Glasgow (Glasgow, c. 1922). Calderwood Castle, finally demolished by the Royal Engineers in 1951 after more than a decade of ruination,F. S. Mitchell, Maxwellton Village & Calderwood Estate: With Notes on the Glen of Torrance, 1984, MS."The Tottering Tower of Calderwood", Hamilton Advertiser, 12 November 1951. was home for nearly five centuries to the Maxwells of Calderwood, including Sir James, second husband of Lady Margaret Cunningham, the memoirist and correspondent.J. Gasper, "Cunningham, Lady Margaret (died c. 1622)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004. Retrieved 15 Nov 2015. Pay-walled. Scenes in Calderwood Glen were sketched by the 18th-century landscape artist Paul Sandby, and the area visited several times by British and foreign aristocracy, including Princess Mary Adelaide and the Crown Prince of Denmark.C. K. Cooke, ed., A Memoir of Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Adelaide Duchess of Teck, vol. I, London: John Murray, 1900, pp. 168–169.Glasgow Citizen, 15 June 1844. A pen and wash drawing by Paul Sandby showing Calderwood Linn - a waterfall currently known colloquially as Castle Falls - was discovered in April 2015 by topographical historian Chris Ladds. Alongside its sister sketch of Calderwood Castle, the wash drawing of the linn represents the earliest known view of Calderwood and of East Kilbride."Young historian finds lost sketch of East Kilbride beauty spot", East Kilbride News, 28 April 2015.
Most of the rocky defile of Calderwood Glen forms a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for palaeontology and geology, designated on 1 August 1990.Scottish Natural Heritage, Calder Glen Site of Special Scientific Interest, Site Management StatementNatureScot SSSI Database It is also known for its endemic and often scarce species of wildflowers, mosses, liverworts and fungi in pockets of natural and semi-natural ancient woodland. These areas once formed parts of the more extensive primeval woodland of Central Scotland."Calderwood Glen, 27th April 1907", Transactions of the Natural History Society of Glasgow, New Series vol. 8, [1905–1908]. The Glasgow Natural History Society, 1911) p. 241.Inventory of Scotland's Ancient Woodland [dataset], hosted by the Scottish Government's Environmental Map. Calderwood Glen was noted for scarce flora by botanists surveying the region, including Roger Hennedy, Hooker, Hopkirk, John Lee, the Rev. William Patrick, and the early palaeontologist Ure. The findings of these botanists were added to in an edited regional flora survey published posthumously in 2016 by P. Macpherson.D. Ure, The History of Rutherglen and East-Kilbride, Glasgow: David Niven, 1793.W. Patrick, A Popular Description of the Indigenous Plants of Lanarkshire, Hamilton: James Thomson, 1831.T. Hopkirk, Flora Glottiana, Glasgow: John Smith & Son, 1813.W. J. Hooker, Flora Scotica, London: Archibald Constable & Co./Hurst, Robinson & Co., 1821.)R. Hennedy, The Clydesdale Flora, 5th ed. revised by T. King, Glasgow: Hugh Hopkins, 1891.G. F. Elliot, et al., Fauna, Flora & Geology of the Clyde Area, Glasgow: Local Committee for the Meeting of the British Association, 1901.)"Calderwood Glen, 27th April 1907", Transactions of the Natural History Society of Glasgow, New Series vol. 8, [1905–1908]. Glasgow: The Glasgow Natural History Society, 1911. p. 241.J. R. Lee, The Flora of the Clyde Area, Glasgow: John Smith & Son Ltd, 1933.P. Macpherson, The Flora of Lanarkshire, Newbury: Pisces Publications, 2016.
Maxwellton Conservation Area The 18th–19th-century weaving village of Maxwellton survives in the western part of the Calderwood neighbourhood. Once a rural community, it was the main area of proto-urban settlement in the Barony of the ancient Calderwood Estate, where from AD 1400 until 1885, the Maxwells of Calderwood were the main landed family.W. Fraser, Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok, vol I., Edinburgh: privately published, 1863, p. 460.F. S. Mitchell, Maxwellton & Calderwood Estate, with Notes on the Glen of Torrance, MS. 1984.T. E. Niven, East Kilbride: The History of Parish and Village, Glasgow: Guthrie and Lang Limited, 1965, pp. 13, 190. Maxwellton became prominent locally and nationally from the 1960s onwards, when a dispute broke out between residents and the East Kilbride Development Corporation, which sought to condemn the settlement as a slum and demolish it to make way for part of East Kilbride new town."Council want plan for Maxwellton scrapped", The Glasgow Herald, 6 December 1966."Minister in fight to save village", The Glasgow Herald, 15 March 1969."The Maxwellton Scandal", The Architectural Review, 1 May 1970, vol. 148 issue 880, pp. 387–388.'The Maxwellton Scandal [reply]' in The Architectural Review, vol. 148, issue 881, 1 July 1970, p. 64. The Burgh Council of East Kilbride sided with the villagers, and with backing from the National Trust For Scotland, a campaign ensued over subsequent years which saved most of the village on historic, architectural and aesthetic grounds.Letter from General Secretary for The National Trust For Scotland, addressed to F. S. Mitchell, 19 January 1970, being part of East Kilbride & District Historical Archive Ref: F15/Mitchell/Maxw/Doc-111."Maxwellton – Solution At Last?", East Kilbride News, 6 February 1970. Maxwellton village then joined the early statutory conservation areas in Scotland, after nearby Eaglesham in 1968.Conservation areas: 50 years of protecting Scotland's built heritage, The Scotsman, 14 November 2017.