A city at the risk of decay: Glasgow must learn from its past

Murphy and the team of eight staff at the heritage trust run the independent charity and grant funder.

Alongside a voluntary board of trustees, they give out almost £1 million in funding each year to help people in Glasgow protect, repair and promote the city’s historic buildings and places.

Murphy self-proclaims himself as someone who is passionate about cities, architecture, heritage and urbanism, but that doesn’t go far enough.

The zeal that emanates from him could power redevelopment plans purely from his energy.

Pictured: 'Heritage hero' Niall Murphy (Image: Supplied)

As Murphy talked through recent projects the trust has been involved in at 97-101 Trongate and 202 Hunter Street, there's a feeling of newfound optimism for Glasgow's future.

It is vital, however, to look backwards before taking the next step forward - especially in a city with a story like Glasgow’s.

He explained: “To understand where we are now and what’s happening with our heritage now, you have to understand the history of Glasgow and what happened here in the Victorian era, and on from the second half of the 20th century.

“There was rapid expansion and rapid city growth, and then you’ve got the downside to that, which is that Glasgow ultimately ends up being too big for Scotland. What do you do about something like that?

“By the time you get to the mid-20th century, after the Second World War, there were 30 years of no investment in the city’s housing stock, you’ve got massive overcrowding in places like the Gorbals – Glasgow [at that time] was 700,000 people living within a square mile radius.

“Glasgow was operating at twice the density that London was then. Now it operates at around one-third of their density.”

What happened next is no secret. It was a planned mass evacuation-style event that created the "new towns" but left the city centre as a place for work and business, not to live.

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Pictured: 97-101 Trongate underwent vital conservation repairs and restoration in April 2024 (Image: Supplied)

Murphy said: “Part of Glasgow’s health problems come from that dislocation that happened there. If everything that you know in your life [where you’ve been brought up] gets swept away and isgone – what does that do to you as a person? It must have a psychological impact because you suddenly become rootless.”

Compounding this decades-long shift in Glasgow's development, where the city went "all in" on retail, has left Scotland’s biggest city bereft of a clear route forward in a death of the high street, post-Covid world.

Glasgow, moving forward, must learn from these mistakes, where motorways and "progress" resulted in whole communities being decimated and, as Murphy eloquently put it, "created borders in the city".

That’s exactly where the trust comes in. It is at the forefront of ensuring the city retains its history, heritage, and heart.

However, combining new building standards and old-fashioned city planning doesn’t always go hand in hand.

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The rise in construction costs and falling property prices within the city have meant developers have looked to more accessible options meaning they look for a "clear" site - often leading to the demolition of some of Glasgow's oldest, most culturally rich and most beautiful buildings.

Pictured: The India Building on Bridge Street (Image: Supplied)

Murphy understands that a financial burden comes with retaining these buildings, but it is a price worth paying. He explained: “Bulldozing everything, like they have done in the past, isn’t the answer. It was seen as a ‘great leap forward’, but those can end up being great catastrophes at the same time, and in Glasgow’s case, it did a lot of damage to those soft networks in the city.

“We have this big stock of buildings, and we must figure out a way of repurposing them. Somehow, we must make that attractive to people so we can get developers engaged once more.

“It’s about finding the levers to do that, and I think it’s a national problem and not just down to Glasgow City Council. Glasgow’s city centre should be one of the drivers of the Scottish economy, and you can’t sit and let it rot – you have to have it firing on all cylinders, and that’s a challenge that needs to be met.”

READ MORE: 'It was a real risk': How a 200-year-old former mill became dream family home

Murphy and the trust fight battles daily for individual buildings and slices of Glasgow’s rich architectural tapestry to try to secure a brighter future while protecting the past.

They embody the city's spirit in the pragmatic yet sentimental way they view a future for Glasgow.

In their prophecy, this post-industrial, post-war, post-Covid Dear Green Place holds on to its heritage and welcomes people back to the city - not just to commute to work but to live, breathe, and enjoy it in all its resplendent beauty.