With the completion in 1840 of the new Great Western Road, which provided for the first time a direct route from the city to the lands to the west and with the relocation of the Botanic Gardens to the Kelvinside estate in the early 1840s, the original character of the West End area – isolated farms and the country houses of the very wealthy – began to change rapidly.
The speculative developers of Hillhead, Kelvinside and Dowanhill sought to entice the burgeoning mercantile classes of Glasgow to grand new terraced and detached houses using the attractions of the fresh air and hilltop views, as well as the distance from the less salubrious sections of the city. Eventually, many of the great names in Glasgow commerce resided in the West End, and after the University of Glasgow moved to Gilmorehill in 1870, the area also became the home of the city’s academic elite.
In order to attract the cream of Glasgow society, the developers of the West End had to offer the highest standard of suburban building. In the second half of the nineteenth century Glasgow had a plethora of gifted architects who were capable of providing designs for these superlative buildings. Among the most renowned were James Thomson, designer and architect of Belhaven Terrace, Belhaven Terrace West, Devonshire Terrace, Ashton Terrace, Crown Circus and Crown Gardens. Belhaven Terrace West was built in the early 1870s.
The lanes to the rear of the terraces often housed stables and coach houses serving the main dwellings. Over the years many of these were converted to mews houses and many others disappeared, being converted into parking spaces or gardens.
Quite often the lanes of the West End terraces fell into disrepair.
Belhaven Terrace West Lane was well maintained over the years by the Association, with regular lane cleans and seasonal planting.
In 2006, an initial mews house designed by Michael Gilmour Association was developed in the Lane, followed in 2020 by five further dwellings designed by ZM Architecture.
