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Ralston | olspan=2 align=center bgcolor="#9999ff"|Ralston | | olspan=2 align=center| | Ralston is a small, suburban settlement in Renfrewshire, Scotland, bordering onto the eastern edge of the Royal Burgh of Paisley. In recent years, Ralston has come to be regarded by many as no more than an outlying suburb of Paisley, although many proud locals would dispute this fervently. History Ralston was founded in the early 1930s as a leafy haven for wealthy Paisley textile merchants, wishing to raise their families in a more rural setting outwith the burgh's boundaries. The area takes its name from the feudal estates of Ralston, or Ralphis toune (Ralph's settlement), named after the younger son of the Earl of Fife, to whom the lands were gifted in the early 12th century. The ruins of Ralston House were demolished in the 1930s, however part of the original stonework forms an annex to the club house at Ralston Golf Club. The East and West Lodges on Glasgow Road were the original gate houses to the estates. Despite its close proximity to Paisley, Ralston has always remained independent of its larger neighbour, and until 1974, formed the most-part of the Hurlet and Oldhall district of the County of Renfrew. In a local referendum, held in 1995, ahead of the planned abolition of the Strathclyde Region and the resultant partition of Renfrewshire into three separate authorities, the people of Ralston voted overwhelmingly against pulling out of the new Paisley-based, and Labour-dominated Renfrewshire authority to become an annex of the newly-partitioned East Renfrewshire, the only Conservative-governed region in the country. Despite East Renfrewshire's offer to set up a local government office within Ralston, local people were concerned that the town would end up a remote outpost, linked to the rest of the authority by a narrow strip of countryside with no direct road or public transport links connecting the two. By far the most persuasive reason against annexation, however, was that Ralston School was (and is) one of the two feeder primaries, serving Paisley's Grammar School. Parents were concerned that if the Ralston were to leave the jurisdiction of Renfrewshire, local children would in future be prevented from attending not only Ralston's closest secondary school, but one of Scotland's finest in the state sector. Famous Locals Scottish actors, Tom Conti and Gerard Butler are both originally from Ralston.
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