33 Dale Street, Glasgow.
The Glen-ythan. c1900.
The Glen-ythan Bar sat on Dale Street, Bridgeton for many years. in the 1890s there were five pubs and a licensed grocers business on this street.
Thomas McKenna ran this old howff in the 1870s, the pub was taken over by well known spirit merchant Hugh McCabe.
Mr McCabe formerly worked for John Graham & Sons, prominent figure in the Scottish Licensed Trade who owned pubs all over the city. McCabe left his employee to start on his own in the old Glen-ythan Bar.
Hugh paid an annul rent of £19 15 shillings for the premises, he passed away in 1902, his wife Jeanie then took over the licence, she sold up a few years later.
Mary Armstrong then took over this old pub which was then very run down and in great need of alterations to keep up with the rest of the pubs in Bridgeton, however she never spent money on repairs and redecoration. In the early 1920s the pub was visited by the magistrates as there were a number of complaints about the state of her old pub, the main complaint was the smell in the pub which was so bad that strangers going into the pub had to hold their nose, the locals must have been used to it.
The plumbing had to be repaired and so did the decoration, the pub hadn’t been decorated for years Adjacent to the bar was a small sitting room with a partition from the floor to the ceiling, there was glass half way up but was not clear enough to see through, the magistrates suggested that the partition should be removed so that you could see into the sitting room and would help with the ventilation.
If Mrs Armstrong refused to do this she was in great danger of losing her licence, however she did remove part of the partition, four and a half feet from the floor. Her licence was refused a few months later and the pub was demolished.
