Paisley

Paisley grew beside its abbey on the White Cart Water, west of Glasgow. The monastery enjoyed the patronage of the Stewarts and became the burial place of Scottish royal and noble figures, including Marjory Bruce and Robert III. At the Reformation in 1560 the monastery was dissolved, though the nave of its church continued in use by the parish. In the eighteenth century weaving transformed the town. New streets and settlements housed weavers and textile manufacturers, and Paisley's cloth became the basis of a flourishing industry. The old abbey and the expanding manufacturing town stood together as reminders of very different sources of prosperity on the banks of the Cart.