Scotland's first conservation village
Eaglesham
A planned village arranged around the tree-planted Orry and Eaglesham Burn, with historic buildings and Eaglesham Moor to the south.
- Best for
- Village history and walks
- Give it
- A village walk or a longer Whitelee visit
- Don't miss
- The Orry and Eaglesham Burn
The Fox verdict
A planned village with the Orry at its heart
Eaglesham combines a distinctive eighteenth-century layout with churches, historic buildings and access to Whitelee Windfarm.
The Orry gives the village its defining shape, while the heritage trail, parish church, St Bridget's and Eglinton Arms provide useful stops within Eaglesham. Whitelee adds a visitor centre and a much larger network of walking and cycling trails on Eaglesham Moor.
Where to go
Places in Eaglesham
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesEaglesham Parish Church
Completed in 1790 to a design by Robert McLachlane, the church began as a small octagonal building and contains a memorial to Robert Lockhart and Gabriel Thomson.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 35 minutes
- Locality
- Montgomery Street
Eglinton Arms Hotel
The long-established public house of the village, with an original north-west section that is Category C(S) listed.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Gilmour Street
Whitelee Windfarm Visitor Centre and Trails
A free visitor centre with an interactive exhibition, cafe, shop and education hub, alongside around 130 kilometres of walking and cycling trails.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 150 minutes
- Locality
- Eaglesham Moor immediately south of the village
Walks & outdoors
1 placeThe Orry
A triangular common of about one third of a mile, planted with trees and divided by the Eaglesham Burn.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- through the middle of the village
History & heritage
2 placesEaglesham Heritage Trail
A walking trail through the conservation village, opened by the Eaglesham & Waterfoot Community Development Trust in 2011.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- through the conservation village
St Bridget's RC Church
Established in 1857 for Irish immigrant cotton-mill workers, the church contains a large canvas of the Deposition of Christ by de Surne.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Polnoon Street
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Three ways to explore Eaglesham
Signature outings
Walk the Orry
Walk the long triangular green planted with trees and divided by the Eaglesham Burn.
Follow the heritage trail
Follow the heritage trail through Eaglesham's conservation village and its planned streets.
Explore Whitelee
Pair the free visitor centre with part of Whitelee's walking and cycling trail network.
The village story
Eaglesham Village Guide
The Orry, historic buildings, churches, mill history, Whitelee and an extraordinary wartime landing shape Eaglesham's story.
The Orry and the Planned Village
The Orry runs straight up the middle of the village: a triangular green about a third of a mile long, planted with trees and split down the centre by the Eaglesham Burn. Everything here is arranged around it. Two ranges of houses climb the hillside on either side — Montgomery Street to the south, Polnoon Street to the north — and the green rises between them, wide enough that the two sides of Eaglesham feel like separate addresses. The word Orry comes from the Scots *aurie*, meaning area, which is about as plain a name as a piece of common land can have.
This layout is not accidental. In 1769 the tenth Earl of Eglinton began laying out a planned village around the green, offering tacks on 900-year leases; his successor finished the job. The result was designated Scotland's first conservation village in August 1960, and the parish still holds around sixty listed buildings. You are walking through a piece of eighteenth-century town planning that has largely stayed put.
Historic Buildings and Churches
The Eglinton Arms Hotel stands on Gilmour Street, the long-established public house of the village, its original north-west section a listed building. The name belongs to the Montgomerie Earls of Eglinton, who founded Eaglesham and owned it for seven centuries. Further along Gilmour Street is Polnoon Lodge, an early-eighteenth-century hunting lodge built by the ninth Earl — later a temperance hotel, then a boarding house, then restored as housing for the elderly, which won it a Civic Trust Award in 1971. One house in Cheapside Street is a miniature replica of it, once lived in by the estate factor.
The parish church, at the top of Montgomery Street, was completed in 1790 to a design by Robert McLachlane and began life as a small octagonal building before it was extended. Inside is a memorial to Robert Lockhart and Gabriel Thomson, two Covenanters executed on 1 May 1685. Down on Polnoon Street, St Bridget's was built in 1857 for the Irish workers who came to the cotton mill, and holds a large canvas of the Deposition of Christ.
From Mill History to Whitelee
The mill itself is gone. A water-powered cotton-spinning works went up in 1791 and employed around two hundred at its peak; it burned and was rebuilt more than once before a fire in 1876 finished it for good. When it was first built it cut into Motte Hill, the flat-topped mound beside the burn where local assemblies were once held.
South of the village the ground rises into Eaglesham Moor and Whitelee Forest, and the moor now carries the largest onshore wind farm in the country — 215 turbines across fifty-five square kilometres, with a free visitor centre, a cafe and roughly 130 kilometres of trails for walking and cycling. It is an easy drive from the green.
Road Links and a Wartime Landing
Glasgow is eight or nine miles north; Newton Mearns and East Kilbride are closer, and since the A726 opened in 2005 the through-traffic no longer comes past the door.
It was a field just outside here, at Floors Farm, that Rudolf Hess landed by parachute one night in May 1941, having mistaken the place for somewhere else entirely. A local ploughman, David McLean, walked out and helped the injured airman to his feet.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Orry — enjoyeastren.org other published source
- Eaglesham Heritage Trail — whatsoneastrenfrewshire.co.uk other published source
- Eaglesham Parish Church — portal.historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority
- St Bridget's RC Church — portal.historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority
- Eglinton Arms Hotel — bw-eglintonarmshotel.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Whitelee Windfarm Visitor Centre and Trails — whiteleewindfarm.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access