BARRHEAD residents are being encouraged to share their knowledge, memories and photos of one of the town’s most historic buildings.

The 115-year-old James McGuire Building, in Main Street, is the new home of the Include Me 2 Club, which plans to turn it into a community hub.

The site had been vacant since 2015, until the charitable group received the keys last month.

However, across the decades, it has served as council chambers, a community centre, an employability office and a police station.

Much of the evidence of its previous lives, including the old jail cells, still remain.
Now the building – named in honour of long-serving councillor James McGuire and the support he gave to Barrhead during decades of civic duty – is set to enjoy a new lease of life.

While they will be making some minor alterations to the interior, members of the Include Me 2 Club are keen to preserve and display as much of the building’s important history as they can – and are hoping others will contribute.

Club founder Paul McIlvenny said: “It was built in 1904 and has been many things over the years, from when it first opened as the municipal chambers.

“We’ve been meeting with heritage services and local historians to try to get a timeline, gathering some old photos, memories and stories from people who have lived in the building, used it, worked in it, spent time in it over the years.

“We’re gathering old documents, photos, floor plans, digging into the archives of the Barrhead News, digging up as much as we can, because what we’d really like to do is gather it all together and display it in some kind of way.

“That may be in various formats. We’re looking into creating a visual timeline to go along the walls. We’re also considering a slideshow presentation that can be shown within the building.”

Paul hopes to put together all the old stories and photos, press clippings and documents to create a small book about the building and Barrhead.

“I think that will be something that will evolve out of this project as we go along,” he said.

“We may end up with a little history and heritage group that forms as part of the exploration and they’ll be able to meet at the building, maybe in one of the old cells.

“It could be one of a number of new opportunities that will appear as the result of the building being open and available to the community again.

“It fits into our aim of connecting the charity to the community and the community to the charity.

The Include Me 2 Club was set by Paul and his wife Ashley with the aim of assisting young people and adults with additional support needs, providing them with a safe space to enjoy music, sport and learn new skills.

One of its prime aims with the new building is to help its members find employment by giving them experience of working in hospitality and retail.

The club has submitted a planning application to East Renfrewshire Council to change the use of the building from offices to a community cafe and shop with flexible office or rentable space on the first floor.

Paul said: “When they go looking for work a lot of our members are told that they don’t have the right qualifications or experience. We want to remove those barriers.

“It’s a bit of an experiment, but it’s very carefully thought out, based on research, from listening to our members and finding out what their needs are.

“We’ve been to visit various social enterprises across Scotland, seen how successful they are and have taken a few ideas to make a kind of hybrid.

“We also want to make the building available to other groups. We have the cells that can be used as meeting spaces which will be able to hold up to eight people comfortably. 

“Upstairs there’s a larger room with the original carved fireplace, where the council used to meet, that can be used for training.

“There will be hot-desking facilities available to other organisations like charities so they can come and make use of the space we have.

“The building itself doesn’t require major work, just one or two minor alterations. 

“We want to take down one of the walls to rejig the toilet facilities and bring them up to standard.

"Our primary focus is to open up some of the space for the coffee shop and retail unit, add some more capacity to the toilets and give it a more modern feel.”

An historic building with a most colourful past

Barrhead’s Municipal Chambers opened in 1904 as an administrative centre for the newly-formed burgh.

Along with the Burgh Court Hall next door, the elaborately-decorated chambers were designed by architects McWhannell and Rogerson and built on land gifted by the town’s second provost, Zechariah John Heys.

After it ceased to be the centre of the town’s political activity, the building served many other purposes – most notably as Barrhead’s police station from around 1960.

Once the police moved out, a fierce battle for the building’s future began, with Barrhead Community Council fighting tooth and nail to retain it for the public and prevent it being sold off.

In 1995, it became the Main Street Centre – a drop-in hub for training and meetings for local groups.

At the opening, special guest Isobel Heys, a direct descendant of Barrhead industrialist Henry Heys, ‘loaned’ a banner celebrating the 1892 Jubilee of the South Arthurlie Printworks to the centre.

That same banner was discovered by the team cleaning up in the building last week.

In March 1996, the centre was renamed the James McGuire Building – honouring the area’s longest-serving councillor and his 32 years of service to his community.