CLYDE MAPATHON
Ongoing citizen investigation and mapping of land ownership along the River Clyde aligned to the podcast Who owns the Clyde?
Clyde Bonds by Edwin Pickstone
Books and research for review at the Mapathon
Mapathon at the Briggait, Glasgow
Mapathon at the Briggait, Glasgow
Cadastral Mapping by Common Wealth Studio, University of Sheffield
The Empire Cafe has been exploring why the River Clyde is not the vibrant river Glasgow deserves via the ongoing Citizen Investigation and podcast ‘Who owns the Clyde?’.
Land ownership along the city centre stretch of the river is fragmented, murky, and it is incredibly hard to find out who owns what. Unlike other European countries, it costs Scottish citizens to search the Land Register of Scotland. You can hear land reformer and creator of the website ‘Who owns Scotland’ Andy Wightman talk to Jude and Louise about his ongoing work around land ownership in Scotland in Episodes 1 and 2 of the podcast.
Through the course of their investigations, Louise Welsh and Jude Barber, have worked with planner and researcher Caitlin Arbuckle Macleod to map ownership along the banks of the Clyde. As part of her research and 2024 Masters in City Planning at the University of Glasgow, Caitlin wrote her award-winning dissertation entitled ‘Who Owns the Clyde: Evaluating the impact of landownership conditions on the achievement of GCC's spatial planning ambitions for the River Clyde Development Corridor, Glasgow’. You can read Caitlin’s dissertation here.
Citizen Mapathon
In June 2025, Jude and Louise hosted a live Citizen Mapathon at the Briggait, Glasgow as part of Architecture Fringe 2025 programme. This experimental afternoon of collective mapping of land ownership along the River Clyde contributed towards their ongoing investigation into fragmented and opaque land ownership from Glasgow Green to Glasgow Harbour.
The ownership searches were supported via a Crowdfunder, with citizens purchasing bonds or paying-it-forward for others that may not be able to purchase themselves.
A specially commissioned 'citizen bond', designed by Edwin Pickstone of Glasgow School of Art, was given to those who donated and carried out searches on the day.
Inspired by the Empire Cafe project 'Who Owns the Clyde' students of Studio Common Wealth, as part of their 2025-2026 MArch in Architecture course at the University of Sheffield, carried out research into the relationship between the city of Glasgow and its river. As part of this work, they developed an open-source Cadastral Map, using the information gathered during the Who owns the Clyde? Mapathon along with their own searches using the remainder of the Crowdfunder. You can access the map here.
They also developed a Toolkit to allow others to continue digitising and mapping ownership in an accessible and sharable format. This guide is also aimed at future students of this studio project, to continue building on the information.
In February 2026, the students hosted an evening of discussion and debate regarding the future of the River Clyde at the New Glasgow Society. This work is ongoing and we invite anyone interested in this ongoing citizen action to get in touch.