Started in 2018 , Duncan has more than 40 visits or walks in both Paisley and further afield. Meetings usually take place on Thursdays.

Please contact Duncan, using the contact link above, with ideas for future visits and to check on the latest information. Any new folk who wish to join this group should email Andy, the membership secretary via the Contacts page of this website.

You might be interested also in a flyover of large collection of lost architectural marvels, the Ferguslie Mills. This was published in 1922 by Cameron Swanson and put on the excellent Facebook page of Paisley Buildings. Here is a link to the video section Paisley Buildings-Facebook-Videos

Future Outings

Thursday 18th June 2026 at 11 am

Our next outing is to see the remaining Brown & Poulson buildings on Falside Rd and Brodie Park in south Paisley. Brown & Poulson, major manufacturer of corn flour and many other food products, commissioned TG Abercrombie to design their red brick office block (1907), and in a contrasting Arts and Crafts idiom a Workers' Institute (1913) and 12 blocks of cottage flats (1911-13) providing homes for 48 employees and their families. This pre WW1 company employee housing was part of the garden city movement started in England with such places as Port Sunlight. Please meet on Falside Rd at the corner of Braids Rd. The short walk to Brodie Park can be extended along Carriagehill Drive to see some more buildings of note.

Previous Outings

May 2026	This outing was to see eight of the 12 remaining ancillary buildings of the once huge Ferguslie thread mills, To get an idea of the scale of the mills complex have a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBR5Z2YcU6A All but one of the buildings we saw dated from the 1880s and 1890s, and all but one are B listed. They included the home of James Coats, founder of the thread spinning business. Some continued into East End Park, once the grounds of Ferguslie House, the home of one of his ten sons, Thomas Coats.
April 2026	In April, the group made a return visit to the most outstanding of WD McLennan's four churches, including Re-Hope Church in Gordon Street. (formerly St Matthew’s Church), If you were on the March outing you would see some similarities with the Renfrew Trinity Church. Prior to this some of the group also saw the inside of McLennan's Bull Inn, Scotland's most Art Nouveau pub.
March 2026	A visit to Renfrew Town Centre. We met at the gates of the Old Parish Church in the High St (1861-2 by JT Rochead). After visiting Renfrew Town Hall (1871-73 by James Lamb, and rebuilt after a fire in 1777), we took a short walk, passing a few other buildings of note, which brought us to Renfrew Trinity Church at (1864-5, extended 1903-4 by WD Mclennan with unusual roof trusses).
February 2026	This visit was to Paisley Abbey, the town's foundational building. We looked at how it served over three long periods as: 1. A Catholic monastic church from its foundation in the C12 to the Reformation 2. The nave as a Presbyterian church 3. From completion of the rebuilding of the transepts and chancel as a church-cum-cultural asset.
December 2025	The group met at Paisley Grammar School on Glasgow Rd (1895 by TG Abercrombie) where thjey viewed the great hall of the school There after the visited Robertson House, the former Renfrewshire Education Authority offices (Cook and Hamilton 1924), and finished at St Mirin Catherdral (1930-32 by Thomas Baird). On this short walk they also looked at some other interesting churches, and terraces of tenements (1880s by Davidson) and town houses.
October 2025	Members of the group had the opportunity to see the great hall and rear of the 1896 Paisley Grammar School building by TG Abercrombie. They were also able to view proposals by Nixon Ltd for its conversion and redevelopment of the rest of the site with 123 flats. Nixon Ltd were the developers of the seven storey Millhouse block of flats on Bridge St opposite the abbey and are the council's preferred bidder to buy the Grammar School site.
October 2025	This outing was a guided tour of Clydebank Town Hall and Museum. Clydebank Civic Hall was built in 1900-2 to the design of James Miller, architect of Central Station and much more. The building comprised Main and Lesser Halls, a former Court Room, and a gallery. Page\Park's uncompromisingly modern alterations and additions, completed in 2013, have improved circulation and added the gallery overlooking a new garden on the site of the former swimming pool. Clydebank Museum is in the Central Library on Dumbarton Rd, 1913 by A McInnes, has artifacts relating to ship building and sewing machine manufacture, erstwhile Clydebank industries. Clydebank Town Hall and Galleries West Dunbartonshire Council
July 2025	The architecture group's July outing was to Govan town centre. From the ancient Govan stones in the oldest graveyard in Scotland to Collective Architecture’s dense social housing with some Victorian gems from the burgh's ship building century.
June 2025	This outing for the Architecture group was a walk around Paisley's West End to see some over-looked but interesting buildings. We started by visiting St Mary's Church, built 1890-1, this is Paisley's oldest RC church. From there, a fairly long but flat walk took in various buildings, including a remarkable Sunday school by TG Abercrombie, two weavers cottages and a very modest Greek Thomson inspired tenement.
May 2025	Our May outing was to the Mackintosh-Macdonald House in Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum. There was an excellent exhibition putting the house in the context of Glasgow at the time Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald were transforming the interior of their mid-19C terrace house in 1909. There was also art gallery to explore and a good exhibition in the foyer of the house to look round, The house also contains a replica of the very different jazzy bedroom Mackintosh created in 1919 in a Northampton terrace house.
April 2025	We stayed with the Art Deco theme for our April outing, attending the exhibition Art Deco Scotland: Design And Architecture In The Jazz Age at the Glasgow School of Art. Those of us who attended were impressed by the video flyover a virtual model of the 1938 Empire Exhibition in Bellahouston Park. You can watch this again via this link: https://sit.gsa.ac.uk/project/british-empire-exhibition-glasgow-1938.
March 2025	This very enjoyable and interesting visit was to the NMIC, the New Manufacturing Innovation Centre on the Netherton Campus of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District (AMIDS), guided by an architect from the firm that designed it. This enormous building, opened in June 2023, is like nothing you will have seen before. It is the home of the Manufacturing Skills Academy of Strathclyde University. Its 11,500 sq m is carbon neutral, powered by a solar array, ground and air heat pumps and is linked to low carbon district heating.
February 2025	We learned about the church buildings on Oakshaw Hill. Between the completion in 1774 of Oakshaw High Church and when the Coats Memorial Church opened in 1894, no less than six other churches had been built on the hill. The group leader outlined the story of church building in Paisley over these years, and how many former church have been found new uses. Following the talk, the group had a guided walk up the hill to look at thee eight buildings.
January 2025	About 25 members had a good look round both the historic exterior and the carefully upgraded interior of Paisley Arts Centre. Group leader, Duncan, pointed out key features of this T-plan church, typical of early Post Reformation Scottish churches. It had been built in the 1730s by Paisley Burgh to cater for the growing population. Once inside, members split into two groups for a guided tour. They learned how two lead Council architects, Alberto Torres and Stephan Poutney, brought the modernisation project to a successful conclusion. Members were impressed by the attention to detail, from the now comfortable and retractable auditorium to the back stage facilities for visiting artists.
November 2024	The group had a very interesting wander round George Square to look at its statues - there are 13 of them!
October 2024	This outing was a walk down the White Cart looking at fording places and bridges across the river, starting from the Watermill Hotel carpark beside the Hammils Waterfall
September 2024	The highlight this month was the Glasgow Doors Open Festival. Hopefully many of you were able to visit some of the buildings and events listed.
August 2024	This walk was through the Paisley campus of UWS, and ended at the Sma' Shot Cottages. In addition to several buildings of the university, we saw no less than seven designed by TG Abercrombie, and six church buildings.
July 2024	This was a guided walk through Woodside Cemetery. We started at the cemetery gatehouse on Broomlands Street. We also looked at some notable monuments as we walked (slowly) up to the esplanade to one of finest crematoria in Scotland (1938) by James Steel Maitland.
May 2024	Culzean Castle and gardens - as part of an away day for all Paisley and District u3a members. Members of our group had an immensely enjoyable day out at Culzean Castle in May.
March 2024	This walk included the Watt Institute, Greenock, the Tontine Hotel for lunch and then Greenock Old West Church.
December 2023	22 members visited the newly opened Paisley Central Library.
October 2023	Dean Castle, Kilmarnock.

Paisley and District u3a Groups