29 North Woodside Road, Glasgow.
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Exterior view of the Peargrove Tavern. 1955.
Update… Jimmy Gibbons sent this email in 2008…
This establishment was the reason my father strayed from Religion….Each Sunday on his way to St. Joseph’s (facing the Pub) for 12 o’clock Mass, he ‘MISTAKENLY’ seemed to ENTER the rear entrance of The Peargrove.
Then in his wisdom, ten minutes before Mass ended ( thinking that he would not meet the Priest..Fr. John Lyne speaking to his Flock.) He would nip along to ‘THE HAIRY CORNER’ situated on the corner of Lyon St. and North Woodside Rd. This was owned by his pals..Willie and Peter Byrne..( Later the owners of the HAWTHORN BAR in POSSIL.)
Then around 3pm in the afternoon when the ‘Old Man’ was lying on the couch..”Resting his Eyes”..Father Lyne would appear and announce that he noticed him missing from Mass..and it seemed that he had seen someone fitting his description sneaking into the ‘PEARGROVE’ just before 12 o’clock Mass, as he looked out of the Chapel House window…?????
These were the days when pubs didn’t open on Sunday…!!
In an article about the Peargrove Tavern it is mentioned a man sneaked away to the HAIRY CORNER. This was in North Woodside Road and it ran round the corner to Lyon Street. I am going mad trying to find the correct name of that pub. I remember fondly collecting my Uncle Johnyboy McGeddie when he had one too many and accompanied him back to my Auntie Becky in Lyon Street.
My Grandfather James Finnie known as Pop, co owned and ran the family business they called ‘The Shop’…this was The Peargrove Tavern at 29 North Woodside Road Glasgow. I was born in 1950 and remember to this day standing in the pub with its wooden floorboards and the wonderful aroma of ale that permeated the whole pub. I was only knee high at the time. The family lived at 43 Great Western Road in 2 flats above the subway. That flat has now long gone. In fact when a lot of the tenements whose walls were ingrained with suit and muck from years of pollution from heavy industry, The Peargrove Tavern was earmarked as a future museum as a typical Glasgow pub until some jobsworth saw fit to demolish it as well as our tenement. That pub and our tenement were of solid build and it’s a crying shame that they were not sand blasted and looked after for posterity as many were.