Rosshall Park. Crookston Wood and Castle. Leverndale. Paisley. The Beautiful South.

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The great wood of Pollok. It was while we were on the 22 bus from Braehead to Silverburn to do the walk mentioned in the previous post (Arden, Darnley) that we passed Rosshall Park and I discovered that Alan had not been in it. This suggested another walk so the next week we took the same 22 bus from Braehead to Silverburn shopping centre but got off it on Crookston Road at the gates to Rosshall Park.

Rosshall Park entrance gates. This is a small park but it packs a lot into it. Over many decades I've cycled and walked through it so I know it fairly well.

Rosshall House and Park info. It's been around since the Mid to late 1800s and was once a private estate. Rosshall Hospital is close by as is Leverndale Hospital.

It's usually a nice quiet park, not a busy one. Monkey puzzle tree showing it's vicious spikes and  thorns. A tree type that's been around since the dinosaurs and largely unchanged since then so who knows what it needed this level of protection from. Certainly not monkeys but they would find it equally hard to ascend.

For a small park it has everything. Mature trees and atmospheric vistas. As it was May the wild garlic covered the woodland floor, giving off a pungent scent.

Like all the Glasgow Parks since the covid lockdowns it looks slightly overgrown in places, and neglected, but nature can handle that lack of maintenance, for a few years at least. Before brambles and other land left lying plant specialists take over.

The meadow section with a yellow disc basket. This is a Frisbee type game I've only seen in one other park. Ruchill Park. Skimmed accurately the disc should hit the chains and be captured by the basket.

The pond.

Lush vegetation at this time of year. I had a mental image of snapping turtles basking on a log here. It just had that kind of vibe.

 The highlight/oddity in this park is the grotto. An artificially created small labyrinth of stone blocks, swampy puddles, and trees but with a path twisting through it. I have seen this in every state of neglect since the 1960s, most barren looking in the winter months, but in May, with thick vegetation, it looked every inch the ancient jungle ruin.

A cave lies at its heart. Not that many folk come in here so it is secluded.

Not far away and a 15 minute walk further on through the back end of Rosshall Park lies Pollok and Crookston Wood. On the left ( red roofs) is the local Lyoncross Road row of shops in Pollok. On the right is Crookston Wood and this is the direction we entered it from. Lyoncross Road halfway down. A path here leads up into the woods then out the other end onto Dormanside Road.

I've always thought of it as a dark wood but not on this occasion. Not only Crookston Wood, seen above, but the surrounding grassy meadows along Linthaugh Road in Pollok offers visitors around a million bluebells every May. It was spectacular... but gone now for another year. 

 No wonder I love May. Although this particular wood has unpleasant memories for me.

Even as a youngster I liked exploring new places but this wanderlust didn't always go down well in rival territory so my luck ran out and I was stabbed here. Even today it's not a wood that feels friendly. A few male local dog-walkers and that's it. Back in the late 1960s however it was surrounded by flat roofed tenements similar to Priesthill in the last post and I got caught trespassing and paid the price. Luckily no major arteries got pierced and Leverndale and it's calm nurses worked not far away. I think he was aiming for my balls but got my groin/ upper thigh instead as I was a moving target. 

At that time a large water tower (gone now) stood in the centre of this wood used as a hangout by the local gangs but I didn't know that as it was my first time here so was caught unawares. It was not the 'summer of love' for me in 1969. 

An incident I mentioned in the first and last chapter of my book Autohighography as it's not the sort of thing you forget. This was a solo bike trip over ten years ago when the water tower was still standing.

 Even now it is not a wood to enter lightly. Although the general surrounding area is much improved. No 1950s tenement clusters exist nowadays. Although some lone tenements in better condition still remain in the district.

We then arrived at Croc's Castle ( Croc's town)  or Crookston Castle nowadays and this is worth a visit for able bodied people. It stands on a small hill in the middle of Pollok and is open in the summer months. Toilets beside the entrance house. It was free to get in. One of the oldest buildings in Glasgow dated 1400s. Free parking in the surrounding streets but to make a day of it use buses and add in extras like this walk.

Although a ruin it's one of my favourites as three vertical interior ladders lead onto the roof giving magnificent views over the surrounding area. 

Main info board. Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots might have been in this area during their courtship. They certainly gave their names to many places locally in Glasgow. Like Darnley (he did own an estate here) The Darnley Tree ( an ancient large sycamore) and Queen's Park.

And most of this view is one of trees. Pollok is truly amazing for displaying wild nature within a city environment. Neilston Pad here in the distance. A woodland realm stretching  to the far horizon. 

And from the roof we could see our route ahead. The dotted line. Up through Leverndale, more woods and open land, then eventually Paisley, where we would get a bus back. 26 bus every 15 minutes from Paisley city centre to Glasgow city centre. 

The entrance path up to the castle.

Leverndale came next. A mental health hospital, once an asylum, but now some of it is private homes.

And the iconic tower, seen from miles around. Also on a hilltop. A couple of hours pleasant walk when linked with Rosshall Park and Crookston Castle. 

We carried on however, passing more bluebells, to take a tarmac path from the tower along the White Cart Water ( you can include this as well on that shorter walk, looping back towards Rosshall Park.)

We kept going however as our end was in Paisley, White Cart Water path, above.

Ornate cycle gate near Hawkhead. Still on our tarmac path.

Art Deco buildings at Hawkhead.

Modern housing. Good colour makes all the difference.

Approaching the town of Paisley. Once one of the richest towns in Scotland and the UK with a textile and thread empire that spanned the globe. Cotton, textile, and thread mill equipment plus Paisley HQ expertise got exported worldwide to set up satellite factories in numerous countries from the 1800s to the early 1970s when it became cheaper to make it in factories abroad with lower labour costs.  Paisley still has many grand period buildings from that time. A fitting end to a magnificent walk.  3 to 4 hours duration walking. Add another hour for buses.

Braehead. Silverburn. Arden Mural. Dams to Darnley. Barrhead. Childhood. A Bus Walk.

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With the Strait of Hormuz blocked for the last few months and fuel prices for even small cars costing £70 for a full tank ( £20 for under a quarter of a tank) it was a no brainer for Alan and I to take buses to do a walk. Luckily, I had several walks up my sleeve and they were actually better suited using public transport as they started and ended in completely different locations. First up was Braehead, seen above and below, where I found out online that a 22 bus from stance 6 at Braehead Shopping Centre would take us to Silverburn Shopping Centre in Pollok. Around a 20 to 30 min journey via Penilee, Hillington and Crookston.

 Barclay Curle Crane on the River Clyde. There's around a dozen of these heavy duty cantilever cranes scattered around the world still standing and this small river has four of them. This one....Finnieston. Clydebank's Titan and Greenock's Titan. Relics of the largest shipbuilding hub on the planet from the 1800s right up to the 1960s so plenty of history and heritage here while you wait for a bus. ( An X8 express bus from Buchanan Bus Station will take you direct to Silverburn as well but we fancied a change by deliberately avoiding Glasgow City Centre altogether for something different.

The former Albion Motor Sheds on South Street. This location still deals with trucks and heavy haulage vehicles last time I looked. ( Just looked it up online, might have closed for good now.)The bus soon arrived and we trundled off through the various housing estates mentioned to our destination. Our route was mostly new for Alan and we both enjoyed the journey. With my solo Edinburgh trips I was an old hand at bus travel across cities but I think Alan started to get into it as well when he realised a car trip down the coast, even Largs or Irvine would be  £10 to £15 each in fuel costs. Half a tank.

Getting off the bus at Silverburn, and having pre-packed a lunch each, we followed the Brock Burn on a good tarmac path that starts from Silverburn, curves round Priesthill, Darnley and Arden following the burn all the way. The route looks like this most of the way. A green ribbon skirting the edge of these former council housing estates but in spring, summer and autumn they are mostly hidden and a rich canopy of leaves and wildflower verges brightens up the walk. Past Priesthill the path goes under a railway line via a large stone bridge, Brock Burn on left. Once through this open tunnel turn left up Kennishead Road past a playpark then follow another tarmac path between Darnley and Arden to Nitshill Road. Path seen above.

A glimpse of Darnley through the trees from the path. Having spent the first 27 years of my life in this area during the 1960s and 1970s I know it well. From the deck access estate that the Darnley once was ( see the last remaining deck access tower wall, now enclosed and with resident only gates and entry doors attached, above.) In the 1970s when the original estate was built it was all deliberately open plan and you could walk from one end of this estate to the other at high level with connecting sky bridges leading to the various towers. My very first sky city which at a young age I found amazing..... and totally addictive. Sci fi stuff... like the books I was reading. You would often bump into adult strangers, new to this estate, entire families wandering along the corridors, looking for relatives who had moved here, as finding the right door was not easy for people used to traditional streets at ground level.. First timers visiting Bonhill in Alexandria still have the same experience without GPS and a smart phone to guide you.

An old photo from 2013.

Corridors in the heavens on a wet day sucked us in. A great dry playground for us free range youngsters from Nitshill, Priesthill, and Arden. Think Divis Flats in Belfast or Park Hill in Sheffield. I also think of Bioshock Infinite as I did meet an angel or two floating around up here at cloud level. Throughout the 1960s however it was half a dozen large grassy fields and hedgerows, grass cropped short by dairy cows. No houses here at all then. In the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s most of South Nitshill, Arden, Priesthill and Pollok didn't exist either. Just farms, hawthorn hedgerows, and fields. Horses, black and white cattle, quiet country lanes and some crops. Small woods. Water troughs placed at intervals in each field for the thirsty cows. Turnips, sugar beet, wheat or barley. And even a hay harvest.  Haystacks for cattle winter feed presumably. Hay bales a rare sight on soggy Scottish West Coast farms nowadays. This was my world back then. Just tall enough at that age to lift myself up on tip toes to see into the metal water troughs on hot summer days, looking for dragonflies or pond skaters. Skylarks trilling overhead, swallows, house martins and swifts joyful in abundance. The beautiful South indeed. I did grow up in heaven. Such vivid memories of that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Hill,_Sheffield.  A good link here giving you a taste of what it was like in the old Darnley. Streets in the sky. An architectural adventure in concrete and brick that may never come again. A naïve architectural mistake for ordinary families living in them though. Worth viewing the photo slideshow gallery in this link. The new low level Darnley is much nicer... but less exciting. Same with Priesthill which now has a small nature reserve at its heart where the water tower and some of the flat roofed tenements once stood.

The flat roofs and grim tenements of old Priesthill, built in the early 1950s with a massive concrete water tower rising on the summit of said hill, dominating any tenements circling below, looking across the valley at us and Darnley like a taunting devil's crown. Reputedly a priest was hanged here in times past, providing the name. Mordor and Mount Doom combined. Certainly was for us if we strayed too near it on our travels. A deadly rival gang lived here always on the lookout for intruders into their territory. Maybe this is why these playpark animals look so apprehensive. They remember it too. It was rough.

 A Priesthill Street view. Linnhead Drive I think. 1980s. Now a wildlife reserve. It was back then as well :o) All the tenement schemes/ estates were.

Nearby Arden has not changed that much since those days. A few streets knocked down and a local estate pub closed but still a tenement estate. I'd seen this gable end mural online and it is a cracker. It resonates so much with me as that's exactly how I discovered nature... and books. At that same age. An autumn scene painted by Rogue One and commissioned by Glen Oaks Housing Association on Kilbeg Terrace it's just a five minute detour from the path we took. I also vividly remember my first Spring at around a similar age. A toddler. Disused metal tramlines used to run past Arden then past the old Darnley Fire Station then up Parkhouse Road taking trams towards Barrhead and Paisley. I was placed by someone... parents or older sister, between the tramlines, probably in May, and was immediately surrounded by colourful dandelions, clover beds, and daisies growing/ covering the waste ground. At that age and height off the planet they might as well have been waist high daisies and head high sunflowers. I vividly remember how huge they looked to me. That was it. I was completely hooked. Instant admiration. The natural world for life. A burning love affair far stronger than any human relationship... as none of them have lasted from cradle to grave. Books as well. Pollok had a great library near the bottom of Peat Road so every children's book you can think of... all the classics....and a few more besides, like Lilith and Phantastes I devoured eagerly. Another lifelong passion. Alan seems to have it as well. Always new paper books in his house and that's one thing that is cheaper today. 10 pence to £1:50 out of charity shops when I was paying £5 to £10 40 years ago from city centre traditional book shops. (Lord of the Rings deluxe trilogy for a Xmas gift. Hope they appreciated it!)

We then cut along the edge of the Darnley on an elevated grassy ramp right beside Nitshill Road, past several flowering cherry trees, past the Sainsbury, to gain entry to the Dams to Darnley Country Park at the old stone bridge. Throughout the 1960s it was all fields, dairy cattle, and a few farms here. The drumlin countryside of small rolling hills and vales. Nothing else like it in Scotland. Completely unique landscape. All lost under housing developments now: The Darnley Estate, The Parkhouse Estate. Southpark Village, Jenny Lind Extension/Deaconsbank covers a forgotten area of fields and farms the size of five or six Pollok Country Parks. Think about that. I often wandered from my house via back inland tracks all the way from Parkhouse Road to Rouken Glen Park without hitting a single tarmac road or any traffic between Parkhouse Road and Stewarton Road. Walking well inland from where Sainsbury's is now, past a dairy farm then a lone cottage. And no M77 motorway either. Walking inland past The Tradewinds Pub. Collecting crab apples, brambles, elderberries, raspberries and gooseberries in each passing season with family members for making jams and jellies at home. A lingering leftover habit from World War II food rationing that my parents still remembered and recreated for me from their own recent past. That all stopped around ten years of age when my Mum got part time jobs (my Dad always worked full time in factories/ car assembly plants.) to boost the family income. Home baking ended as well. No more oven cooked apple pies and rhubarb tarts when it was cheaper and easier to buy them out of shops. Bye bye childhood. An aunt still had a sunken metal bomb shelter in her back garden that we played in throughout the early 1960s.

Although it is still an enjoyable walk today it is just a heavily overgrown vegetation tangle with a few man made walkways/ paths cut through it. In the 1960s and early 1970s, my teenage years, you could put a clock face down where I lived and go round every hour on it, walking a different varied route to the horizon. It was that good. A lot of prime farmland is out of bounds. Crops, barbed wire fences, deep ditches or streams. None of that here then. Cattle kept the grass short, any woods had paths through them, wire fences (un-barbed) easy to squeeze through at that age, most fields just short grass to walk across, avoiding any cow pats. Often in bare feet, tee shirts, and summer shorts. Black rubber sand-shoes often tied to belt by laces in summer heat or draped around neck. Only used when required. Heaven.

On this occasion we walked to the white bridge halfway up Corselet Road then took another path that skirts the Parkhouse Estate. This is it here and it brings you out at Whitriggs Road in South Nitshill. Almost heathland here. This area used to have various thrushes, skylarks, corncrakes, yellowhammers, curlews, and linnets but with habitat loss, climate change, fewer hedgerows and insects, plus domestic UK cats killing 50 million wild birds a year it is decades since I spotted a linnet in Scotland. They like to nest in the gorse, safe from predators, but numbers have crashed since the 1960s. The very first episode of Still Game was filmed in South Nitshill and at the last house in Whitriggs Road before filming moved to a high rise block in Maryhill for the rest of that popular television series.

And finally on this walk you get a glimpse of what it used to look like. Imagine children wandering here... where you can still walk to the horizon over short grass fields. above. Unfortunately, once you get to this horizon line, The Barrhead Dams, you find more new housing and disruption occurring. For the last three years they have been working on the Aurs Road upgrade. Setback after setback. Finally they are nearly finished but unlike the glossy billboard promise of a Barrhead utopia they have already ruined that area for me. 

An old photo taken years ago... before disruption, huge water pipes and new housing. My beautiful Barrhead Dams, once buried so deep in unspoilt countryside, is just another large housing estate now. ( I can't really grumble as I was born in Kinning Park, an inner city district with few trees and zero fields or dairy cattle.... before we moved out to Pollok. Everyone wants to live in the countryside I suppose.)

So we turned in another direction. The area between Whitriggs Road and Salterland Road where grass paths still lead across the fields into the town of Barrhead. And this is still rural and untouched although not unsullied by a modern plague. Litter and dumped rubbish.

First view of Barrhead from Salterland Farm/ Road. Once in Barrhead we reached a bus stop on Glasgow Road, A736, where a 51 McGill's bus ( Barrhead to Paisley) took us back almost to where we started out. (26 bus in Paisley main street takes you to Glasgow City Centre or get a train in Paisley to Glasgow.)

A church in sunny Govan where we ended up. Neither of us going to Paisley on this occasion.

Govan rent strikes sculpture. Next to Govan bus station and underground.

An elegant period tenement in Govan.

Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Govan. A 3 to 4 hour walk at an easy pace with a lunch stop included.... and several different buses. I enjoyed it. And I think Alan did as well.