Walking Tours on Wheels
Organised Sma’ Shot Day @ The Paisley YMCA 39 High Street PA1 2AF
A FREE Gift will be awarded to the 100th visitor to the Walking Tours on Wheels office
Walking Tours on Wheels would like to thank you all for attending this event.

Tea Party YMCA Office Sma’ Shot Day 2012 Walking Tours on Wheels

Walking Tours on Wheels Valentine’s Theme Tour, will enabled people to fall in love with Paisley Town Centre and its stunning buildings. The guided tour will led us through the town before making our way to Tannahill’s Cottage, in Queen Street,

Christmas Tinsel Tour

Walking Tours on Wheels is a Volunteer Organisation and has organised a Christmas Tinsel Tour on Saturday 10th December leaving from the YMCA Office top of High St/ New St Paisley starting at 10.00am going to the Paisley Abbey. 

Ghostly goings-on in Paisley

EERIE ghost tours through Paisley have been such a spook-tacular success that more are being planned for next year. Les Fernie organised two tours which were enjoyed by more than 80 people, with actors dressing up in scary costumes to add to the fright factor.

The tours included a trip to the Gallow Green, off Queen Street, where seven people were killed and then set on fire 300 years ago after being labelled witches. Mystery and intrigue has long surrounded the slaying of the so-called Paisley witches back in the 17th century.

• For more information on the ghostly goings-on in Paisley, or to find out more about
• Walking Tours on Wheels, call into the YMCA office, 39 High Street, Paisley, or call 0794 178 4932.
• Alternatively, send an e-mail to les@historicalpaisley.com
• Next up for Les is a special one-off Christmas Tinsel Tour, which takes place later this month.

In 1873 George A.Clark, a member of the famous thread family, left £20,000 in his will to build a Town Hall in his native Paisley.

A site was found next to the Abbey which was suitable under the terms of the will; the hall was to be in the New Town, east of the Cart, where George Clark had been born and where his family’s thread mills were.

The George A. Clark Town Hall was officially opened in January 1882 among great celebrations. A procession made its way through the decorated streets, and at night there was a firework display from the High Church steeple.

The impressive building became a landmark in Paisley. The taller of the two towers, with its sculptured figures representing the four seasons, housed a clock and a chime of bells which could play a different tune for every day of the month.

The many rooms of the Town Hall proved ideal for meetings and social events. By the 1980s, however, the chimes no longer worked and the halls and rooms were shabby and run-down. Plans for repair and modernization were drawn up.

By 1988, in time for the celebration of Paisley 500, the chiming mechanism in the bell-tower was restored. In 1990 work began on renovating the interior of the building, and as this continues we can see the Town Hall, over a hundred years old, ready to plan its full part again in Paisley life.

Paisley Museum opened in 1871. The building was designed by the well-known Glasgow architect John Honeyman and was paid for by Sir Peter Coats of the famous Coats thread manufacturing family.

This late 19th century museum and art gallery houses the world famous collection of Paisley shawls. Displays trace the history of the Paisley pattern, the development of weaving techniques and the social aspects of what was a tight-knit weaving community. There are also fine collections of local history, natural history, ceramics and Scottish paintings, as well as a series of changing exhibitions throughout the year. Also on site you’ll find the Coats Observatory; one of only four public observatories in the country.

Tannahill Cottage in Queen Street Paisley was the Tannahills’ family home. Robert Tannahill lived in the cottage till he died in 1810. In 1775, James Tannahill acquired Bailie Slater’s steading in Queen Street, and erected upon it a one-storey thatched cottage, with a passage through the centre, the north side being occupied as a dwelling-house and the south side as a four-loom weaving shop. James Tannahill was a very accurate individual, and he kept an account of the whole cost of the building, which has been preserved in his memorandum or note pocketbook to the present day.

The book was a precious relic of the Tannahills and is still in existence, carefully preserved by one of the daughters of James Tannahill, the immediate elder brother of the Poet. The handwriting of the father is even better than that of any of his sons. The building of the house was one of the important acts in the life of James Tannahill. The house was built at a cost of £60  16s /4d.

Thomas Coats was a devout member of the Baptist Church and a successful industrialist whose working life almost mirrored the reign of Queen Victoria. Within the family firm, J & P Coats (his two elder brothers) he was a key figure in the expansion of the company not just in Paisley where it had been founded in 1828 but also in Europe and in North and South America. By 1910 around 10,000 people worked in the thread mills in Paisley which required 400 tons of coal per day to keep the machinery running.

In common with many other members of the family Thomas was a philanthropist. The breadth of his concern reflected the way in which the Coats family used their resources and their position to improve the amenities available to the population of Paisley and its environs. As well as expanding their textile business – well into the 20th century – they were committed to the improvement of public education and health and what we might now refer to as the living environment of the citizenry of 19th century Paisley. Underpinning this was a Christian faith which kept the family at the heart of the religious life of the town.

The Coats legacy is still to be found throughout the town with the Thomas Coats Memorial Church, which dominates the Paisley skyline, being the most obvious example. The Memorial building was built after his death in 1883 on the commission of his wife and children. Gothic in design and built with warm red sandstone the base is cruciform under a superb vaulted roof and has a seating capacity of around 1000. Rising above the church is a magnificent crown tower and spire.
The wider Coats family contributed to the construction and renovation of three other churches including Paisley Abbey. The former main hospital for Paisley, the Royal Alexandra Infirmary, owed much of its provision to Peter Coats. Though much of the industrial presence has now gone from the town there are still echoes to be found of Paisley’s textile past. Where else might you find an interwoven pattern of streets called Cotton, Silk, Lawn, Thread, Mill and Incle.

ceiling inside the Paisley Abbey