Trongate

Trongate is one of the oldest streets in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Trongate begins at Glasgow Cross, where the Tolbooth Steeple is situated, being the original centre of medieval Glasgow, and goes westward changing its name to Argyle Street at Glassford Street.

Trongate with Tron kirk steeple on left, viewing west

History

Previously known as St Thenew's Gait (the way to the supposed site of St Thenew`s burial) it was around the start of the 1500s that the name Trongate first began to be used. The name comes by virtue of a weighbeam erected in the mid-16th century, used for all goods requiring to be weighed for duty reasons, including from early shipping on the Clyde. Tron is a Scots word of Norman origin for weighing scales.[1]

Trongate, looking east from Argyle Street

The Trongate was one of the areas which was affected by a large fire on 17 June 1652 which destroyed a third of the town and left around 1,000 families homeless. The fire also affected the areas of Saltmarket and Gallowgate.[2]

The Tron church was founded as the Collegiate Church of Our Lady and St Anne in 1525 by James Houston. It became a Protestant church after the Reformation and the tower was added in the late 16th century. The steeple was added in 1628. Most of the building was destroyed by a fire in 1793, only the tower surviving.[3]The current church was built in 1794, separately from the tower.[4] It was substantially redeveloped in the 1980s as the Tron Theatre.[5][6][7]

References
  1. Second City of Empire, by Charles Oakley, published 1975
  2. "17 June 1652 - Great Fire of Glasgow". glasgowlife.org.uk. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
  3. Old Tron Steeple (Glasgow University Library, Special Collections, Wylie Collection), The Glasgow Story
  4. "Glasgow, 71 Trongate, Tron Steeple". Canmore. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
  5. Trongate, Glasgow History
  6. Glasgow, by Irene Maver, published 2000
  7. The Building, Tron Theatre

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