Paisley Photographs

Paisley Photographs

Here are some cracking Paisley Photographs sent in by one of our visitors, Hugh Craig, You too can send in your photographs of Paisley to be seen by our thousands of daily visitors by sending them with a description to brian@paisley.org.uk 

The photographs Hugh has sent in are as follows:

• Gabriels gets a facelift. It’s the best pub in town.
• Cloisters at The Abbey.
• Arnott’s.
• PaisleyTown Hall. The sun was behind the Clock Tower lighting up the skeleton of the scaffolding through the dust netting.

Paisley Townhall

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.