River Clyde Walkway To Glasgow Green. Calton and Bridgeton Cross.

                                                ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN.

 

I've been off line for the past two weeks due to an outside technical fault so I'm almost a month behind on my blog posts. As promised in the last post this is the continuation of the Cuningar Loop walk along the north bank of the River Clyde to Glasgow Green. New flats at Dalmarnock Here. Dalmarnock and nearby Bridgeton used to have a large power station, gas works, iron works, sewage works, and other industries based there, which, due to a common weather feature very important in most northern European cities in past times. ( i.e. the prevailing winds blowing west to east,) meant a lot of hard graft jobs for those willing to live and work in the area if you could put up with the squalor and the smells. Obviously, not so relevant now, post Industrial Revolution era but still a long lasting legacy of that basic fact in most cities.       i.e.  the East End in most European cities will usually be the most deprived, have the heaviest concentration of problem factories, (coal fired power stations, animal rendering works, slaughterhouse facilities, steel and iron works, chemical factories. smoking chimney clusters etc....all found  past or present in UK and northern European city districts- East End.   Glasgow's being no exception.

 

Many of those industries listed above are long gone but I was made aware of the fact that the Dalmarnock sewage works are still active by the smell passing them as at a certain point on the river the stench kicked in. A smell not noticeable at any point walking through Dalmarnock itself nor in the Cunningar Loop Park at any point but I'd imagine it might drift occasionally in the wind. Fortunately on this day it was confined to a small section of the river bank around this mural, Took this photo because it was unusual. A kind of new romantic type theme going on maybe... or the circus? Or kabuki theatre perhaps?  Most of the better known punks and New Romantics incidentally, with good steady record sales over decades comimg in, live in castles or mansions now, still enjoying a time when people bought LPs and singles in large numbers from bricks and mortar stores.
 

 

I was also surprised to see a boat repair yard this far up the river, above the main barrage/weir at Glasgow Green,  but I suppose as long as you have access to a km or so of open river, as you do here, you can still test for leaks, steering problems, engine repairs etc, as it still seemed to be active. I suppose this makes perfect sense with over a million people.... in East End Glasgow, Rutherglen, Cambuslang. Airdrie, Hamilton. Motherwell, Coatbridge etc....(if some of them had boats and trailers that is) unwilling to travel to the coast for repairs when they have a local boatyard much closer to home.  Next boat repair place down the River Clyde I can think of is just past Yoker near the border with Clydebank.

 

Still get occasional boats on the river up here though and you sometimes see the Glasgow Green rowing club practice along this upper stretch.
 

 

Apart from the sewage works smell, (which was soon passed,) it was a pleasant green walk with an abundance of late May's wild flowers.... and butterflies.

An orange tip butterfly here.

 Bluebells...

 Common Comfrey. A plant often used in the past in herbal medicine to treat bruises, sprains, etc... even to set bones by making an early plaster cast from this plant mashed down then molded around an arm or leg to set firm. ( knit bone. bone set... being it's older more practical names).....with the old Belvidere Hospital location, also on the riverbank. not that far away, just upstream.

 So plenty to see and some nice welcome shade on a hot day.

 

Further downstream, after overhanging green shade, you pass into a fine open, airy section and a new bridge across the River Clyde. This part I've explored many times on a bike when it first opened, around ten years ago, and I can honestly say I don't miss traveling abroad for exotic holidays, or even the Scottish Highlands, when there's so much to see and do within Glasgow and the Central Belt. Hundreds of memories of past trips and frequent changes, dating back to the early 1960s stored away in my brain. The old Strathclyde Public School building here, above.

The River Clyde view from this same bridge with the new Police Scotland HQ building.

From the same bridge a view looking the other way, up towards Toryglen, and with clear memory to draw on I remember an excellent vivid day, about ten years ago, cycling up around these hi rise flats and finding unexpectedly good green trails and footpaths all round them then seeing the last of the old failed estate getting pulled down around  Prospecthill Circle district as I arrived. Urban Nirvana for me. A wild west gladiatorial Colosseum that's now only a glittering gemstone  memory of a day in the past. Only ever real to those who knew of its existence. I have a visceral encyclopedia of those places in my head. Images of old 1970s and 1980s Greenock, Edinburgh, Dundee, Kilmarnock, Perth, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Paisley. Even in a small area like Shawbridge massive changes have occurred. Housing estates rising and falling, entire landscapes transformed... buildings long gone or altered significantly.  Excellent because I always love exploring new districts and this was one I'd only driven past in a car.... not explored fully. Incidentally, I've not had a proper two weeks traditional holiday for around 20 years or more but I do not miss that extra expense and eggs in one basket commitment at all as I have frequent days out and occasional weekends instead. My life is one long holiday :o) 

 

Much cheaper... and I had plenty of thrills whizzing around Torglen that day....Happy and completely euphoric afterwards. Don't think The Golden Gate bridge. New York City , or even Angkor Wat could have topped that. 

I was puzzled by this new building though and the Red Tree sign on it. Turns out they rent office space here...and at other UK locations presumably for as long as you require it. One person or a group/ small company needing a temporary or longer term office. 

 

Part of the new walkway heading to Shawfield Stadium and Richmond Park.

 

 

Richmond  Park. I was only hear briefly, a small park I used as a green ribbon corridor to get me into Glasgow Green, a much larger park nearby.

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Where I ended up in Dassie Green, a park within a park, next to the Calton District.

Do not remember being in here either or if I was it was a long time ago, before this stone circle arrived. Blue signs give details of important events in Glasgow's long history.

Could just about read the info board. ( Should have brought a wet sponge. Both me and this board would have enjoyed it.) It is definitely getting warmer in the UK year by year. 28c to 29c in London last few days.... 24c to 26c in Glasgow for last three weeks.

 I headed up inland through the Calton District which has some prosperous looking mansions, relics of its vibrant industrial past, but also, stubbornly, has the worst male lifespan expectations in Glasgow/UK due to parts of it being a run down deprived area, traditionally blighted by the East End duo of drink and drugs. Having said that it has its own heritage buildings trail booklet of interesting local architectural features, (like the white house above,) which gets visitors following said booklet through the area.

 

The East End is still changing though.Year by year. New buildings around Bridgeton here.

 

 

The back unadorned unremarkable view of the former very ornate frontage, much photographed, Templeton Carpet Factory. Now flats and office space.

Templeton on the Green. The back view of the former Templeton Carpet Factory. I did have a purpose in coming up this way. A grail quest if you like. Glasgow's City Centre mural trail is well known and fairly compact for walking around in a half day visit but a few more distant outlying gable end murals are harder to reach and need a separate trip to find them. This is one.

 St Thenue or St Enoch, Mother of St Mungo,  Glasgow's Patron Saint. Design by Mark Worst. Brief history of the mural artwork, the reason for the fish, and the artist painting it here in this link. Also has his other mural work including Paisley's Kingfisher gable end.

 https://mark-worst-tfcf.squarespace.com/blog/2020/9/17/thenue-mural-bridgeton-glasgow

Despite being a full sized gable painting it is not that easy to find and I walked straight past this row of tenements on a previous trip some months ago. I went into the shops on the other side of these tenements for a sticky bun moment then got a bus immediately back to my house at the end of a long day, not realizing it was on the back end of this very same building, but hidden out of sight.This time I had the street location. Abercromby Street..... and the fact it was behind Templeton's. If you are standing on the POV spot of the previous photo, looking at Templeton on the Green you will see it as it is part of the left hand tenement block in that photograph.

 

A good day out. Ornate fountain. Glasgow Green.

 

 

William Hill Building at Bridgeton Cross.

 

Glasgow Green Adventure Playground. A good one with high slides and walkways.

Bridgeton Cross Shops. Glasgow.

 And back home again... by train. Total cost of day out .....£1:50 return ticket.

You don't need to spend a lot of money in my world to enjoy yourself immensely.