Town in Lanarkshire, Scotland
Cumbernauld
A hilltop town built to rehouse Glasgow, whose daring concrete centre was praised round the world, then handed a prize for being Scotland's most dismal place.
Key information
- County
- Lanarkshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 52,000, 2011 Census
- Known for
- Scotland's first new town of its kind, the megastructure town centre and the film Gregory's Girl
- Famous people
- Geoffrey Copcutt, Hugh Wilson, Bill Forsyth (film-maker linked to the town)
- Football clubs
- Cumbernauld Colts (Broadwood Stadium); Clyde played at Broadwood from 1994 to 2022
About Cumbernauld
A town designed on a drawing board
Cumbernauld did not grow so much as get planned. In 1955 it was designated a new town to take families from Glasgow's overcrowded tenements, and the first homes were ready in the late 1950s. The site was a windy ridge above the Forth and Clyde valley, chosen partly because it sat well away from Glasgow's own sprawl. The idea was a compact town, with houses packed tightly around a single centre rather than spread out across the hillside. The name itself is much older than the plan. It comes from the Gaelic for a meeting of streams, and the old Cumbernauld Village still sits on its own little hill near the glen.
The town that separated people from cars
What made Cumbernauld famous in the 1960s was the way it handled traffic. Pedestrians and vehicles were kept apart, with footpaths and underpasses threading between housing areas and roads running around the edges. Architects from around the world came to look. The design is closely associated with Geoffrey Copcutt, who drew up the town centre, and with Hugh Wilson, the chief architect of the development corporation. The centre was a single vast 'megastructure' on the hilltop, with shops, offices, flats and the road beneath, all linked under one roof. It was meant to look like the future. For a while, it did.
From world admiration to the Carbuncle Award
Fashions changed. The concrete centre that visiting planners once admired became a favourite target for critics, and it was dogged by leaks, wind and a maze-like layout. In 2005 Cumbernauld was given the Carbuncle Award for Scotland's most dismal town, a title that locals have never let the judges forget. Defenders pointed out that the housing, green space and walking routes around the centre were hugely popular with the people who lived in them. North Lanarkshire Council has since acquired the original town centre and is planning its replacement, which is an unusual fate for a building once held up as a model for the world.
Gregory's Girl and the Cumbernauld look
In 1981 Bill Forsyth's gentle comedy Gregory's Girl turned the town into a film location. Its school playing fields, pedestrian paths and unfussy modern streets gave the film its distinctive, slightly dreamy look. The film followed a gangly teenage footballer who falls for the new girl in the school team. It is still one of the best-loved Scottish films, and it made Cumbernauld's planned landscape look charming rather than grim. Fans still make pilgrimages to find the locations, which seems fitting for a town that was designed to be looked at.
Romans, football and the open air
Long before the new town, the Romans were nearby. The Antonine Wall, begun around AD 142, ran along the ridge to the north, and forts like Castlecary mark the line. Today the outdoors is a big part of the town's pull. Palacerigg Country Park offers moorland, woodland and walking routes, though its former animal collection has closed, while Cumbernauld Glen preserves a patch of the older landscape that the planners built around. On the football side, Broadwood Stadium is home to Cumbernauld Colts. Clyde, the old Glasgow club, played there from 1994 to 2022, then moved to New Douglas Park in Hamilton.
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