An Unexpected Anniesland and Knightswood Walk.

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An unexpected walk for two reasons. The first being that despite living in this general area for 40 years and visiting Anniesland almost weekly for shopping and in general I only discovered this new section last week. Normally I spot green ribbons of open ground really quickly, by using street maps and OS landranger maps but this one completely escaped me until now. The second reason being by using this newly discovered path an interesting and very varied longer circular walk is possible through an area that on first glance most people who live outside this area ( north west Glasgow from Anniesland to Clydebank) might not think there is a good walk here at all. The photo above shows an old gateway and cobbled path halfway down Glencoe Street, which is the first street up Bearsden Road from Anniesland Road. Normally old gate posts and a green mature tree oasis like this one means either a factory or a large detached manor house used to be here but even looking at old  maps online no sign of a large house or buildings in past times is apparent. So a mystery... to be solved perhaps.

You can see how close Anniesland Court/ tower is ( Scotland's tallest listed building at 22 floors high and A listed.) from this path yet in all the years I've lived here this is the first time walking along it. Incredible. After ongoing problems with the blog this discovery lifted my mood as well as getting Stephen King's latest book Fairy Tale for £1 and a boxed set of five Emmylou Harris CD LP's for £1 from an Anniesland charity shop. One of the first songs I learned all the words to then sung at late night parties/ events was Evangeline. I like the moody numbers about death, suicide, and madness and that song ticks all the boxes :o)

This green path continues up to the Fulton Street bridge and beyond. If a flying dragon had landed on the grass beside me and started talking to me I could not have been more amazed at finding this green ribbon as I've driven down Fulton Street and used the Library there ( now gone years ago) 100s of times in the last 40 years. 

It even had murals under the bridge when I've gone to the furthest outskirts of the city just to photograph similar hard won mural works. No idea these were here either.

The route then passed Netherton and Shafton which I was familiar with as I've passed them in the car many times but never walked this stretch  of green meadow either.

The hut at Netherton/Temple and a view of the playing fields beyond.

Which I followed on this right hand side shown until I reached Wilverton Road and the roundabout.

This roundabout. I'm giving detailed instructions here just because if I've missed this route staring me in the face for the last 40 years anyone might miss it and it does make an excellent circular semi urban walk from Anniesland. One I will do again, hopefully as I enjoyed it. The rest of the walk I am familiar with. By walking up Cowdenhill Road, other side of this roundabout, you reach Trinley Brae.  From Trinley Brae, a small hill with great views you have the option of several different routes. One leads down to the far end of  Trinley Brae at Rotherwood Avenue/ Banner Drive where you join the Forth and Clyde Canal tow path back to Anniesland Cross. 

This is Trinley Brae, where the line of white cottages are, viewed from the other hill in this district/area.

Knightswood Park, above and below.

Knightswood Park pond.

Path in Knightswood Park.

Another route follows Trinley Brae to the middle line of steps with railing leading down into Knightswood Park which is one of my favourites. It also has several extra parts to it with one section behind the new BMX centre, a path running from the pond through the woods to Lincoln Avenue at the edge of the golf course. Another section 'The Wee Park' runs along the other side of Knightswood Golf Course  to Dyke Road then back along Loanfoot Avenue to Lincoln Avenue and the High Rise Flats there.

   With wide open views across Knightswood Golf Course, also used in Still Game Episodes along with Trinley Brae and South Nitshill ( Very first episode and most of series one.)

Loanfoot Avenue here, above. All these walk variations are very pleasant.

 You also have the option of passing through or beside the Lincoln Avenue High Rise Flats for even more variety and a second small hill climb with views over the city.

And this second hill, Pikeman Road, is equally delightful (most of the street names in Knight's wood have a medieval/ Robin Hood feel as the Templars supposedly had a castle here. Hence Temple, Athelstane, Kestrel, Pikeman, Baldric, Thane, Saxon, Turret, etc... and even today it still has a lot of mature trees. The great 'Wood of the Knights'. I've been very lucky with both main locations I've lived in as both Pollok and this north west side of the city are very green and leafy. And loads of ups and downs. Small hills with smashing views. And occasionally a stray dog for company .... and  'lashings of ginger beer'....

A view from Pikeman Road looking across at Trinley Brae. Both hills are easy to do along with Knightswood Park, the Forth and Clyde Canal, and my newly discovered path from Anniesland Cross. Allow 3 to 4 hours depending on route variations. On a good sunny day fine varied walking potential.

Left to right. Drumchapel tenements, Blairdardie Hi Rise Flats, Drumchapel High rise pair.

Blairdardie hi rise flats  on Keal Avenue and another route onto the Forth and Clyde Canal from Trinley Brae. So many different options here.

The Drumchapel Way

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Hooray, I'm back thanks to tech wiz Alex. Still a good friend. More tech skilled than me anyway. Had to switch over to google chrome and take 3rd party cookies off rather than using Firefox. ( which I'll switch back to using for everything else. ) Might not work in the long term but I'm back for now. What a ********* faff!.... when it worked fine before. So this post will be quick... not much text. Bus no 3 to Drumchapel shopping centre where I got off. A path leads from there to the two high rise flats and this tarmac path skirts right, between and underneath them and above football pitches then past a playground.

This is the Drumchapel way and is on good, easy to follow paths all the way round. Basically a circular walk right round this vast estate. It's fairly scenic, especially in July, when I did it with a range of wild flowers. If you find yourself going into any of the Drumchapel housing estates retrace your steps as the route only follows a green ribbon of meadows and woods all the way round on a tarmac path.

It then runs beside the Garscadden Burn between Southdeen Avenue, seen here, and Glenkirk Drive.

I then go off route slightly to include Colquhorn Park in Bearsden. Using this handy gap in the fence to enter.

And the pond there.

Then walk along Station Road back into Drumchapel's edge to pick up the path again here at the electricity sub station. Leave Station Road at this point as the path is on the left next to this railing.

The path then runs up through Garscadden Woods to come out near the white water tower at the top of Drumchapel and from there back round to the Shopping Centre again. A good walk of around three hours. Quite a lonely walk for single females and I've certainly not seen many on it, being a wilderness area yet surrounded by urban estates. I always turn around often on walks like this just to see if anyone is following me or approaching me. A lifelong habit as I grew up in a similar large estate.

This is a shortened post just to see if it works. 70 years since Drumchapel was constructed apparently and I've visited it numerous times in every decade since the 1970s onwards. Always an exciting place to be and always changing.

Always like this mural. It makes me laugh. Probably the eyes.

Driving range and five a side football pitches. Drumchapel Way.

They've knocked down part of the 1950s /1960s style Drumchapel shopping centre yet left this. This is a type of 1960s sculpture/ art I never understand. What's it meant to be?

400 feet high it looms over Drumchapel, dwarfing the surrounding tenements and high rise blocks with its vast austere bulk. ( PS ...this last statement is a Republican party 'alternative fact.'

 

The End of the Road.

 For the past couple of years Google or blogger have made certain changes to the way bloggers upload their posts. It still says "make  beautiful blogs easily" but for me that's no longer the case. It used to be easy and simple to do but they made another change recently so I can no longer post photos with the text. I have tried several times but without photos it's fairly pointless. It has also pissed me off. Scunnered in fact. I'm not sure if it's because I have an older model computer, which still works fine for everything else but with most household bills doubling in recent years I'm not about to buy a new windows 10 computer just on the off chance that that will fix this problem.... so for the time being this looks like the last post. Thank you to all the people who have looked and commented on my posts over the years. I still have loads of posts and places I've been to recently still to upload  but when they make it this hard to upload photos the new way... I'm out for now. If it's not broke don't try to fix it is a rule I always followed in my own job but this latest change is tinkering too far with something that worked perfectly fine before.... for the last 16 years of blog life.

Austerity Cuts. The Changing Face of Glasgow's Parks in Aug 2024. New Glasgow Murals.

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 A recent walk around Glasgow's Victoria Park, and several other city parks seemed to confirm what I had been thinking. Although I'm all for re-wilding in certain areas to help wildlife, mammals, birds, bees etc.. I have also been suspecting that letting some areas go wild is more about a lack of garden staff, money saving cuts, rather than any wildlife benefits involved.

 The Victoria Park Fossil grove, seen in both photos above, is a perfect example of this. The second photo is one I took around five years ago, pre- pandemic, showing off the rocks of the old quarry where the fossilized tree trunks were found and was an absolute joy to walk through with loads of flowering plants from early Spring to late autumn. No weeds in sight.

 This is it now in Aug 2024. Hardly any flowers due to wall to wall ferns and bramble growth. Obviously if left another year the entire area will need to be dug out and renewed with new plants... if it's ever going to recover to its former glory. I also noted no tadpoles or aquatic life of any kind that I could see in the Fossil Grove pond whereas I always have frogs, toads, hoverflies, dragonflies, bees and butterflies every year March to October in my own modest garden. Without even trying. Build it and they will come. So much so I'm tripping over the little buggers every time I hang a washing out. " Feed us!" they shout or croak around my ankles. I'm a proud Daddy to hundreds of strange tiny creatures. 

Young Gull.

Young fox.

Frogs.

 

 One of my pet hoverflies. If I read a book outdoors this particular one sits on the page or on my deck chair or finger all summer. Even a cheap £4 plastic tub dug into the ground ( with a shallow end DIY created for amphibians to crawl in and out of easily or a shallow plastic container dish will attract these friendly guys. Easily my favourite fly. Doesn't bite you, sting you, or try to get indoors, lays its eggs in stagnant water instead to produce yet more hoverflies. The UK equivalent to tiny hummingbirds. And if I can do it anybody can. I'm a one person wildlife reserve.....that's helping wildlife in reality. Even if you can manage a tiny permanent puddle in a quiet spot in your garden wildlife will find it and use it. The Fossil Grove pond is that rare exception for some odd reason. Never seen much in it at anytime. Year in year out. Maybe it needs fossil fish.....

 Bluebell carpets and other spring varieties, once a joy to see here in March, April, May will stand little chance against this green fern blanket covering the entire fossil grove area. The Fossil Grove is also shut most of the time and only open very occasionally for interested visitors.

 Same with the back woods which have been left to grow wild as well. It used to look like this just a few years ago.

 This area surrounds the Fossil Grove and was a delight a few years ago with colourful azaleas and rhododendrons everywhere.

 That area , the back woods, has been abandoned as well, with brambles and other weeds running rampart here and rapidly out competing any flowers and bushes left alive. I noticed the same with the main border in the Botanic Gardens and the Walled Garden in Bellahouston Park, Half the flower beds than before. And apart from the main glasshouses in the Botanic Gardens, which are still there, all the other glasshouses in the various city parks are either gone altogether or in a very poor state of repair. 

The more popular half of Victoria Park is much the same as before, the obvious decision being made to concentrate any maintenance and border planting around the parts of the park where the majority of the public and families congregate.  

As here in the formal garden area...

And in the rose gardens... which look just the same as years ago.

An overview of the formal garden area. Incidentally, this was taken from the esteemed park bench which Jack and Victor repeatedly tried to claim but didn't often get in a memorable episode of Still Game. A Scottish TV series filmed around Glasgow. The other park benches in that episode being lower down dotted around the formal garden area.

Three flying ducks on a wall. A Hilda Ogden, Coronation Street favourite house decoration given new life covering the Victoria Park toilet block.

Swan mural. same place. Note the blue water in both images.

Grey Heron over a blue pond.

Victoria pond reality in Aug. 2024. Coots make a nest out of twigs and floating rubbish. As we haven't had much rain the past few months in 2024 most park ponds are half empty and this one had an additional green scum covering it. Despite this obvious drawback nature is always compelled to try and breed each year.

The biggest surprise here however was this sight. It was so unexpected that from a distance viewpoint I thought it was a sculpture at first. Made of metal.

It turned out to be four fledgling grey herons sitting on a nest. Either they have hatched in a tree in the adjacent smaller wooded pond, which is covered in trees, many of them blown down recently, or they have hatched  here for some reason. 

That was the main shock of the day as previously I've only seen coots, ducks, moorhens and swans nesting in the main pond.

This coot had a very high nest but once the recent heavy rains topped up the pond back to it's former glory it wouldn't look so weird and maybe the green scum would dissipate.... or be scooped off  by park maintenance teams eventually. It's been a very dry summer so far... same as last year.

Some new Glasgow Murals down at the railway arches to end with. War Bird.

Creepy character. Either a friendly creature or more likely just a very hungry one happy to spot a passer-bye at last.

Scottish thistles.

My new favourite. Very elaborate design. Mexican or South American at a guess.

BFG. Big friendly giant perhaps... given the dream jar... or just a Guinness drinker in horizontal repose... or poetic contemplation?

Cowboy mural. Part of the reason for capturing these murals is that they often change every year replaced by new ones. For instance  I noticed my old favourite, a modern Cleopatra depiction with the wine glass and pearl story is now gone. So just as well I photographed it a while ago.

This railway arch is situated below Yorkhill Hospital and can also be reached from Partick or Finnieston by walking next to the Clydeside Expressway.

The lane immediately behind this railway arch wall is also covered in murals and a small garden is now open here through glass doors but only on fri, sat, sun, I think. Also a proposed 12 floor high stylish hotel might be built here in this lane.

https://www.glasgowwestendtoday.scot/news/revealed-urban-garden-emerges-from-wasteland-1429/

"Get your coat... you've pulled."

Scottish mural...

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery, usually with gold, all the rage now, in fashionable western circles, but also a philosophy of life in Japan. It's also an album by American rock group Death Cab for Cutie. A band/artist who also wrote one of the best 'couple splitting up' songs of the past 20 years.    Black Sun.

An old favourite. The red fox mural.

And a new favourite. Galatea. The goddess of calm seas who was wooed by Cyclops but fell in love with a mortal youth with two eyes who didn't live in a smelly dark cave all the time. She probably just wanted a bit of bling and a handsome bed partner but when old one eye squashed him under a rock she turned her dead lover into a river. Symbolic or what. Any goddess should be feared, revered, and trusted in equal measure... so a fitting portrait.

This mural is not found beside the railway arches.