Callendar Riggs

In 1921 J G Callander had designed and built a villa on Brown Street, Camelon for Walter Alexander of the well-known bus company.  Nine years later W Alexander commissioned him to oversee the acquisition of a site for a new bus station and its subsequent construction.

The site chosen was at the east end which Falkirk Council was promoting for the expansion of the town.  The Council had levelled Wormit Hill and constructed a broad road from Callendar Road to another new Street called Princes Street.  The first feus were sold off to A H MacIntosh and to Gillespie and Main who had built shops and a meeting hall.  The Scottish General Omnibus Co Ltd was interested in the site on the corner of Callendar Riggs and Callendar Road, but upon receipt of a higher offer from J G Callander for a larger site it ended these negotiations.  The new site extended from Callendar Road to a side street which the Council was in the process of constructing and which became Meadow Street.  It thus passed to the rear of the two feus mentioned and Walter Alexander noted his intention of continuing their street frontage with new shops at a future date.

J G Callander submitted the plans for the omnibus station to the Dean of Guild Court in August 1930.  At that time the bus station was considered to be “mammoth” and had an estimated cost of £2,800.  In this first phase the scheme consisted of platforms with verandas at either side of the bus route which ran parallel to and east of Callendar Riggs.  Buildings on the east side held lavatory accommodation and large retiring rooms for the conductors and drivers.  The platforms and associated structures occupied a strip 340ft long by 102ft broad.  The remaining part of Wormit Hill was retained by a concrete wall.

The later phase was to include waiting rooms for passengers and a number of shops and offices, providing a hub for central Scotland (see 1933).

G.B. Bailey, 2021