Ruchill
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A branch of the Forth and Clyde Canal runs south from Maryhill through Ruchill to Port Dundas: Ruchill Church stands beside the canal. |
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Ruchill shown within Glasgow | |
OS grid reference | NS581683 |
Council area | |
Lieutenancy area |
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Country | Scotland |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | GLASGOW |
Postcode district | G20 |
Dialling code | 0141 |
Police | Scottish |
Fire | Scottish |
Ambulance | Scottish |
EU Parliament | Scotland |
UK Parliament | |
Scottish Parliament | |
Ruchill (pronounced "ruch hill") is a district in the city of Glasgow. It lies within the Canal Ward of North Glasgow in the Ruchill Community Council area between the Maryhill and Possilpark areas of the city. It has traditionally been characterised by a high degree of deprivation and social problems. However, from the late 1990s much of the poorer-quality housing stock has been cleared to be replaced by newly built housing association and owner-occupied homes, improving much of the area's character.
One part of the area that is largely unchanged is High Ruchill, which unlike the rest of the area was never made up of tenemental properties, but semi-detached housing instead. This part of Ruchill also never suffered the same concentration of social problems as the rest of the area.
The area was formerly the site of Ruchill Hospital. In 1891 when the boundaries of Glasgow were extended to include Ruchill and Maryhill, the Glasgow Corporation purchased 53 acres (210,000 m2) of land there for a public park, golf course and 36 acres (150,000 m2) for the city's second fever hospital, to relieve the increasingly cramped conditions at Belvidere Hospital in Parkhead.
Ruchill Hospital was designed by the City Engineer, Alexander B. McDonald in a Neo Jacobean style, largely using red brick dressed with red sandstone ashlar. McDonald was responsible for a number of civic projects in the city from 1890 to 1914, the most notable being the People's Palace. Ruchill Hospital's design set the standard for local authority infectious diseases hospitals built after the 1897 Public Health Act, which had made the provision of such hospitals compulsory.
Work started on Ruchill Hospital on 16 April 1895, and the foundation stone was laid on 29 August 1895 by Lady Bell, the wife of Sir James Bell Bt, Lord Provost of Glasgow, and it was opened on 13 June 1900 by Princess Christian. Ruchill Hospital cost £330,000 and was designed to deal specifically with infectious diseases, such as smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, poliomyelitis and measles, which were widespread at the time.