History teacher and new SGHET board member Thomas Oldham digs into the archaeological excavation at First Hampden Park and what the Archaeology Scotland volunteers are hoping to find at the old site of the world’s first international football stadium …

So, it’s day one here at First Hampden. The tension is palpable and the excitement bubbling, ahead of what is expected to be a special and historic moment for Scottish football. The away team are wearing yellow and have arrived early – though their captain appears to be running a little late – that’s Kieran (Manchip, not Trippier), from Archaeology Scotland…

Kieran is a friendly and enthusiastic guy, and even has time to have a wee blether with me as we walk through the tunnel (of verdant green) towards his team (of volunteers…OK, OK, I’ll stop now)… Annoyingly he has already started answering my deep philosophical questions – he knows what idiots like me think of archaeology and is already infecting me with his enthusiasm. My inhibitions are not at all connected to the fact I’m English.

Surely there is no actual site of the fantastical early drubbing of England by Scotland (5-1) in 1882? Surely the English built the first purpose built international football stadium somewhere in England; and surely the English invented the passing game that we know today…It turns out First Hampden might have something to say about all that.

Quite what evidence they are hoping to find of the 5-1 drubbing I’m not sure, copious amounts of yeast from spilled celebratory pints? Huge chunks of chewed tobacco spat from nervous English mouths? Maybe a trophy?! Maybe there’s bleedin’ treasure down there! Who knows?

I am currently sitting in my loftily placed media box high in the North stand (i.e. my flat on Kingsley Avenue). As I look down, the team are now standing around in a circle (beautifully planted by volunteer gardeners David and Tahitia McCabe) and are discussing tactics and having a wee stretch. The topic of temperature drifts in the wind – it is uncharacteristically warm for a home game!

So, to ‘pitch’ out the week’s dig to you, the work will involve two plots in the beautiful Kingsley Gardens, an ultrasound scanning of the Hampden Bowls bowling green, and a dig in the trees in Queen’s Park recreation ground between the railway and skate park.

The bowling green ultrasound aims to seek out the centre spot and maybe some old pitch lines like penalty areas. The recs dig aims to find evidence of the grandstand. And the rose garden dig hopes to find remains of the clubhouse.

We have maps, know roughly where all this was (before the sleepy Cathcart circle line rudely blasted its way across Southside), know what happened here, and therefore why it is such a significant site. So, why dig here? I ask.

Being an oft-harsh critic, a historian, and a history teacher who spends their life desperately drawing out explanation, explication, and justification from begrudging, opinionated teenagers, I really, really want to know why we (humanity) bother with things like this. Hopefully we will start to find some answers from this enthusiastic and open-minded bunch of (mostly volunteer – much respect!) archaeologists. It can’t just be an opportunistic moment to get coverage for the bowling club, via a tournament programme filler during Scotland’s first international tournament in a generation, can it?

As we walk and talk, Kieran excitedly says he doesn’t even know what size this pitch was, or how big the penalty areas were. No wonder Scotland won 5-1, aware of England’s ‘prowess’, they probably just put the penalty spot 30 yards up the pitch!

A little later on I catch up with the team deep in the woods of the recreation ground. I finally ask Kieran why they are here and what they hope to find. While politely ‘understanding’ my scepticism of digging for things we know about and have a clear map of, his enthusiasm for the dig is palpable and catching.

First and foremost it’s about finding things that relate to the structures he says – it would be really great to find traces of the old clubhouse, that’s the dream! That is, a piece of the foundations from what they think is the same building that now serves as clubhouse to Hampden Bowls (give or take the odd extension).

There is also talk of trying to find a piece of old turnstile – Hampden was the first ground to have had them! Kieran laughs. He’d even be chuffed with a button or two, at which point Detectorists is mentioned and, like that, a ring pull emerges from the top layer (date unkown, probably Irn Bru). Most importantly though it is about deepening that sense of place and the layered history of Southside Glasgow, something that we at SGHET also care a lot about.

Meanwhile, the team have taken the top layer off their plot and are in good spirits. So far, the artefact tray has a piece of a till (!) and a lovely old Glasgow brick from Paterson and Sons (which once stood at 522 Pollokshaws Road near the junction with Albert Drive where Scottish Ballet now is).

After a wee chat about how to smash a till open and who might have been robbed, the brick leads the conversation. This brick correlates with others used in late 19^th century Glasgow. Is it a remnant of the grandstand? Or a piece of railway construction material? Or just a random old brick? Whatever it’s from, a locally made 19^th century brick seems a fitting first find to start this session of industrial archaeology.

By Thomas Oldham, SGHET Board Member.

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You can find out more about Scottish brickmaking here and more about Archaeology Scotland’s excavations at First Hampden here.

Read: First Hampden Park dig part 2 ~ discoveries and speculations

Crosshill at 150

This article is also part of a series of local history and heritage coverage we are publishing to coincide with the 150th Anniversary of the founding of Crosshill in 1871 as an independent police burgh before being annexed to the city of Glasgow in 1891. See #Crosshill150 on social media,

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The wind is biting and there’s still frost in the Bungo. However, if we look closely, green shoots are peeping up from the earth in our gardens and snowdrops are blooming. The days are growing longer and we can sense that new life is beginning to stir after the dark days of winter. So thoughts will be turning to our gardens and green spaces which are such a solace for us in trying times. Our worlds have shrunk but nearby nature has drawn us to look more closely.

A deeper sense of community, a love of nature and a desire to address climate change prompted a group of us in the red and blonde sandstone terraces of Strathbungo to form an Eco group. We’ve been looking at how to make our homes greener, how we can encourage biodiversity, and reimagining our local environment as a space for people by reducing traffic and pollution. We now welcome everyone interested in all of Strathbungo so please get in touch if you’re interested; email us at strathbungoecogroup@gmail.com.

Biodiversity

Declining biodiversity is one of the biggest threats to our planet and it’s not just about the tragedies of melting ice caps or raging wildfires. Biodiversity concerns our local environment too! As a community, we too can improve things by not waging war on the natural world. Hard landscaping, minimal gardens, pesticides, overzealous cutting of hedges and lawns have made barren places for wildlife and upset the balance of our ecosystem.

We can look to our children who are so aware of the threat to our wildlife and our planet and want us to take action as well as themselves. 12 year old Ava Griffith, a Strathbungo local, is a fantastic example to us. As a member of 141 Glasgow Guides, she has designed and created an amazing pack to Save Our Bees which can be sent electronically or delivered in covid free envelopes. Just get in touch with the Eco Group if you’d like this. The sheets can also be downloaded here. Great work, Ava!

• Save the bees! (pdf)
• Bee colouring sheet (pdf)
• Printed copies & Badges – Order from the Eco Group

It would be good to share some thoughts on what we can do in the coming weeks and months to help wildlife in the Bungo. I’m not an expert on either gardening or wildlife, merely an enthusiastic nature lover, but all of us can help redress the balance of our struggling ecosystem. You don’t even need to do much. Just work with nature, not against it! Nature gives us so much in improving our wellbeing and helping us cope. It needs to be nurtured!

Tidying up, or not

Spring will soon be here and so too the opportunity for a big tidy up. However, it is important to spare a thought for creatures who may be starting to nest or even still hibernating in your gardens unbeknownst to you. Take care when you’re clearing to check and please, please, take extra care if you use a strimmer!

Many hedgehogs, who are now officially an endangered species, suffer horrific injuries and are killed by strimmers each year. You may have heard about our hedgehogs in Thorncliffe Gardens. Our postie found one in a bad way on our path and I discovered that our wee spiky friend had lost a front leg to a strimmer so couldn’t scratch for insects to feed. Sadly, the poor wee thing died before I could get it to Hessilhead Rescue.

Regarding insects, leave a patch of your garden unkempt with piles of leaves and twigs or even have an open compost heap so insects can shelter and breed. If you’re cutting back vegetation preparing for spring, let seedheads lie for a couple of days to let any life crawl out.

Small mammals like hedgehogs need beetles and caterpillars and other insects to eat. Insects are necessary for your garden’s ecosystem …yes, even slugs and snails. These creatures break down decomposing vegetation and also…ugh… eat excrement and dead animals – a very useful service!

The reason slugs and snails get out of control in our gardens and eat our lovely plants is because our ecosystem is out of balance. Birds, especially thrushes, love to scoff slugs and snails as well as frogs and toads. One of the worst things you can do is put down poisonous pellets which kill these creatures but also everything else which eats them. Pesticides are bad for all living things including us as they’re linked to all kinds of health issues.

Water

It’s a great idea to make a pond. Even a tiny pond will be teeming with fascinating wildlife before you know it. Last Spring, I dug a small pond and had frogs living in it within a couple of weeks. It was a source of joy and wonder watching these little guys through the year and they’ll keep slugs and snails in check.

Hedges

Hedges, shrubs and trees are needed by birds and by mammals like hedgehogs who need leaf litter to coorie down. I love watching the sparrows popping in and out of our hedge at the back. It provides protection and a quick hiding place when predators like cats or even sparrowhawks are around. But do you need to cut your hedge as much? It’s a thorny point as neighbours may object to hedges being too high, too messy etc.

The RSPB advises you not to cut your hedge between March and August due to nesting birds, so maybe a trim early on in the year when it starts to grow then after baby birds have fledged is enough. Better a few unkempt hedges but a healthy bird population! Remember to leave at least a 13 x 13cm hole in boundaries for hedgehogs who need to roam around from garden to garden to find food each night.

Pollinators

Nature’s pollinators desperately need our help. Follow Ava’s advice to Save the Bees and plant nectar rich native species if you can. Butterflies, moths, hoverflies and also beetles are necessary for pollination. There’s lots of advice online about what to plant but you can find information here.

• Plant flowers for bees and pollinators (Wildlife Trust)
• Planting for pollinators (NatureScot, pdf)
• Plants & Butterflies (The Hidden Gardens, pdf)

Nature has helped us get through these tough times so let’s go wild to help nature!

And here’s a link for other ideas, from the Wildlife Trust; Attract Wildlife to your Garden

Julie
For the Eco Group

Strathbungo

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Despite a long and proud history, the Pollok story that most people are familiar with is one of post war housing, of growing up in a community on the margins, a community that was overlooked and easy to ignore. At G53Together, we’re planning on changing that narrative through a fuller telling of Pollok’s story. In telling that story we want to celebrate our community and shape its future, by understanding its past, both the good and the bad.

Today’s Pollok owes much of its existence to Sir John Stirling Maxwell, the 10th Baronet of Pollok, who sold a 746,368 acre site of fields and farms from his family lands to the City of Glasgow Corporation for the sum of £111,712 and 15 shillings in 1937. Working with some visionary Corporation Officials, they set to work on creating Pollok as a prototype community. Pollok is Glasgow’s first large scale housing scheme. It was fastidiously considered and confidently planned; Stirling Maxwell saw to that. In the year following the sale of the land, he writes in his book Shrines and Homes of Scotland:

“It is at last realised that the creation of a new suburb entails more than the mere erection of rows of houses – the indefinite extension of a large city, without attempt to preserve the beauty of the countryside or provide space for recreation, can end in nothing but discontent and calamity.”

The plan was to create a community, not just houses. Key to the plan was the inclusion of open community green space with local shops, schools and other amenities.

A report from the Corporation’s Housing Department in October 1937 details the desired hopes for the area to include “pleasure walks and garden plots which will give health and delight to many” “romping space for children” to play and explore among the “sylvan beauties” and “extensive woodlands.” The report further details the “central idea” of Pollok as the “foremost garden suburb in the City” with 50% of the total area of land “set apart as open space”.

It was a revolution of civic thought.

In the decades that followed, the Pollok project would suffer cutbacks and blows. The vision was bulldozed in favour of higher density, lesser quality, flat roofed, cramped, damp, cheaper housing. But people continued to arrive and Pollok became a home to tens of thousands of people; several generations of families have passed over the threshold of these homes.

Throughout those times, Pollok suffered from a lack of hope and an absence of belief. And that’s understandable when so much of what made the community was robbed from it. Schools and community centres, local shops and whole neighbourhoods have been wiped from the map. The last farm and parts of an ancient woodland were levelled for a motorway.

But the seed of a new idea has been planted. Covid-19 and isolation has in a strange way brought the community back together. It has given Pollok a new boldness and a growing sense of self resilience. We’ll be enabling a new sense of community spirit and empowerment through G53Together, a community collective of organisations, charities, housing associations and local residents.

While our focus for now is on covid-19 recovery, from next year, G53Together and our community partners will turn our attention to working to protect Pollok’s rich inheritance, to remembering the people and places that have shaped our community, to celebrating our heritage, and enhancing our green and public space.

If you want to be part of the dialogue and help build Pollok’s future, visit www.g53together.scot or like and follow our social media @G53Together (Facebook / Twitter).

By councillor David McDonald.

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We knew we wanted a project, and our very knowledgeable friend helped guide us towards some of the better opportunities – for example our street is one of the very few which has a bay window in the kitchen as well as at the front.  We didn’t want anywhere where internal walls had been knocked down, and as keen cooks, wanted a dining kitchen. We wanted somewhere ‘with potential.’

We are rather unusual in that the majority of people around Shawlands are young first-time buyers or renting. So generally speaking, not a lot of money is spent on them. We stumbled on this attitude very early on, when a kitchen fitter tried to encourage us to build a fake wall across the bed recess to make it easier for the standard size kitchen units to fit. He tutted at our love of the curved walls and wonky alcove. We didn’t use his services. A well-meaning neighbour came for a look and declared that there was no point in doing what we were planning because ‘you’ll never get the money back.’

All the major work was completed while we were still living in Cardiff. Clearing and selling our house alternated with weeks of concentrated effort, getting covered in plaster dust, exhausting ourselves with stripping off layer after layer of wallpaper, thick gloss paint and botched DIY jobs. There were some pleasant surprises –

the original front door was in good condition behind a plywood panel and the original clockwork bell mechanism just needed cleaning to make it work again.

The orange pine and glass shelves in the sitting room were easy enough to remove so we could reinstate an authentic-looking press using antique glass doors given to us as a housewarming present. Other discoveries were more frustrating – a high cupboard built for no apparent purpose in the hall had been fitted by hacking off chunks of coving and pulling off one side of door architrave. When we ripped out the kitchen units in front of the bay window, we discovered that pieces of window frame were missing.  They’d been chopped off to save the bother of fitting kitchen worktop around them.

Our intention was to combine the best bits of the flat’s heritage with some twenty first century touches so it didn’t feel as though we were living in a museum. 

We had lengthy discussions about the doors, which were orange pine with glass panels. Sourcing original 5-panel doors was clearly going to be a huge challenge – Glasgow Reclamation informed us that they rarely got hold of any the right size, so the chances of getting a set were pretty low. We came to the conclusion that changes like that were part of the flat’s life and we were OK with it. So I painted them instead, and with some beautiful antique doorknobs on them, they look great.

We were very glad when Neil from Clydebuilt joinery, who built the new press, mentioned Express Timber Mouldings in Paisley as a possible source of the old patterns for architraves.  Being new to Glasgow, we had very few contacts and our knowledge base was zero. We trotted down there with a chunk of door surround, left it there for them to look at and within an hour had a call to say they had the original cutters and could easily run some more up to match our existing material at a very reasonable cost.

Of course it wasn’t always straightforward – the boiler got condemned and the microbore pipework needed to be replaced. That meant a whole new central heating system, more damage to the floorboards and endless discussions about the boiler. It was located in full view of the doorway into the kitchen. I was not happy about it staying there. We agreed to get it moved into the utility room out of the way. But new gas safety standards put paid to that – our original fitter made a mistake with the measurements and we were told we either had to seal up the windows to give the necessary air gap or leave the boiler where it was.  Tears were shed. Then the wonderful Mike at Glenlith Interiors came up with a genius idea. He designed a combined cupboard/doorway assembly which hid the boiler (and gave us storage space underneath) and gave us a new door into the utility room which remains one of the highlights of the kitchen!

Once we had engaged Mike Cunningham, the kitchen was plain sailing. He really ‘got’ what we wanted to do – a kitchen that had a heritage feel to it, with units that felt a little like furniture as this would be a dining room as well. We also wanted to use every scrap of space, so bespoke was the way to go. With a very keen cook in the family, we also wanted high-end equipment. A combi steam oven and space-age cooker hood were therefore given pride of place.

The bathroom is the only unashamedly modern room in the flat, but even there we tried to retain some sense of its history by mounting the tiles vertically to give a look of tongue-and-groove.  We needed a practical space for rinsing dive kit so when JP from Coiremanich tiling arrived and pronounced that we needed to get rid of the bath and turn the whole area into a wetroom, we were sold!

With the ‘bones’ completed, we could start to look at decorating. While I am willing to tackle most things, I wasn’t so confident about the colour scheme. I’d bought some curtain fabric on eBay and had a rough idea of the sort of look I was after. The person to bring it together was Anna, the colour consultant from Farrow and Ball, who gave us so many ideas and encouraged us to be braver with colours than we might otherwise have been.

Many packets of Polyfilla and rolls of lining paper later, and I finally had wall surfaces that were fit to be painted.  The colours really brought everything together and created a cohesive look, which I wanted considering you can stand in the hall and see into all the rooms at the same time. The last task was to make all the curtains and blinds. I found vintage William Morris and Sanderson on eBay, blind fabric in Remnant Kings, and finally it was all done. Not without a fair amount of swearing and unpicking when the curtains didn’t want to hang properly, but I got there.

The finished flat is exactly what we’d hoped for and more. From being a base to explore from, with Covid-19 lockdown, it turned into our safe little nest. It continues to repay the time and effort we put in and I can’t see us wanting to leave here for a very long time.

Sarah Bowen,

Bellwood Street

Guest Blog

Read our post on the history and design of Southside tenements.

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Maxwell Park and Pollokshields Burgh Hall have a fascinating history, involving barrage balloons, West Indies slave plantations, and freemasons.

Maxwell Park

In 1887, Scottish politician, baronet, and philanthropist Sir John Stirling Maxwell gifted the land that is now Maxwell Park to the burgh of Pollokshields, for the development of Pollokshields Burgh Halls and public gardens. The area was entirely agricultural until 1850. The park contains a variety of different plants and flowers that were taken from the gardens of his home Pollok House, in what is now Pollok Country Park. These species are believed to have been brought back from around the world by botanist and explorer George Forrest. Many of the flowers can be found in the ornamental bed that used to be the base of the Hamilton memorial fountain. Forrest’s expeditions to the Himalayas were responsible for many unique species becoming part of Scotland’s garden heritage at Pollok House and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Building on this heritage, the community launched a plant nursery with the support of the Friends of Maxwell Park in 2012.

Not many people know that there was a barrage balloon mooring site in the South West section of Maxwell Park. This site was part of a network that protected the people and war-time industry of central Glasgow and the Clyde from low flying enemy bombers during World War II. The park has many significant features including Pollokshields Burgh Hall, ornamental horticultural bedding displays, a formal play area, and a commemorative George Forrest display plant bed. There’s also a pond with wildlife, and what the local Helen Millar and her friends called the ‘elephant stone’, when growing up – a large rock for children to play on – nearby.

The Stirling Maxwells

The Maxwells/Stirling Maxwells of Pollok House in Pollok Park were one of the most eminent families in South Glasgow. Sir John Maxwell, 2^nd Baronet, had Pollok House (now A listed) built from 1747-1752. The 10^th Baronet, Sir John Stirling Maxwell (1866-1956) inherited Pollok House in 1887, and opened the estate to the public in 1911. He gifted land that now contains Maxwell Park to the burgh of Pollokshields in 1887; you can still see the Maxwell family motto, ‘Do Good While the Holly is Green,’ carved on the wall of Pollokshields Burgh Hall (also A listed), in the park. He was Chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland, and a Trustee of the National Galleries of Scotland, one of the founding members of The National Trust (and one of its first Presidents) and became a noted art collector. After he died in 1956, his daughter Anne gave Pollok House, the art collection, library, and 361 acres of surrounding land, to the City of Glasgow.

Links to Slavery

The Stirling Maxwells inherited their wealth in part from Archibald Stirling the elder (1710-1783), who made his fortune through his sugar plantations, using slave labour, in Jamaica. Archibald Stirling the younger (1768-1847) was also planter and slaveowner in Jamaica. After the British Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833 the younger Archibald Stirling was awarded £12,517 in compensation (over £50 million in today’s money) for the 690 enslaved people across his estates: Hampden in St. James, Frontier in St. Mary, Kerr or Keir Settlement in Trelawney, and Grange Hill in Westmoreland, all in Jamaica. He returned to Scotland and married Elizabeth Maxwell (daughter of Sir John Maxwell (7th Baronet and sister of Sir John Maxwell (8th Baronet of Pollok). Their son Sir William Stirling of Keir went on to become Sir William Stirling Maxwell (9th Baronet of Pollok). You can learn more about this family in our July 2020 blog on the Maxwells.

Architect Henry Clifford

Pollokshields Burgh Hall was exhibited in 1890, and officially complete in 1893, to a design by architect Henry (Harry) Edward Clifford (1852-1932). Clifford has connections to slavery both through his family and his work for the Stirling Maxwells. He was born in Trinidad to a family of sugar plantation holders. When his father died, the Cliffords moved to Glasgow. He studied and taught at Glasgow School of Art, won prizes for his work, and set up his architecture partnership Landless & Clifford, before going solo. He lived with his mother and sisters in Pollokshields. Clifford achieved national fame in 1901 by winning the Glasgow Royal Infirmary competition, although the commission was eventually given to James Miller. Clifford designed Pollokshields Burgh Hall in the Scottish Renaissance style. He clearly remembered his time in the Caribbean fondly as well, and named two of his buildings Woodbrook House after the Trinidad estate, one on Elphinstone Road, Whitecraigs, the other at Reigate.

Pollokshields Burgh Hall

The A listed halls form an asymmetrical composition of 17th-century towers and wings, made of dark red sandstone (in contrast to the blond sandstone of many surrounding villas). The buildings include an adjoining Jacobean lodge (refurbished 1996), and gate leading to the Maxwell Park drive. The Maxwell coat of arms appears on the entrance archway, flanked by lions, and is set in marble on the floor of the building entrance. You can see Maxwell’s motto ‘Do Good While the Holly is Green’ carved on the wall outside the building, and in the large east window. The halls feature a range of stained glass windows gifted by Pollokshields residents, a Venetian window, a 1935 west window bearing the emblem of the Corporation of Glasgow, and 17th-century-style Masonic stained glass. The building is maintained by Pollokshields Burgh Hall Trust.

Freemasons

The building has been used as a masonic lodge since it was built, and the arch built into the back wall displays several carved Masonic emblems and the Masonic symbol. The Memorial Window in the main hall depicts the glory of the afterlife, with the two pillars on the side panels representing the entrance to the Sanctum. The inscription on the centre panel reads:

“To the memory of departed brethren”.

The Minor Hall features a window dedicated to Saint John, Patron Saint of Freemasonry with the motto ‘Gloria in Excelsis’, presented by Morris Carswell, First Master of Lodge Pollok. The other window is dedicated to St. Andrew the Patron Saint of Scotland, with the motto ‘Virtute in Silentio’, and was also presented by a freemason, David R. Clark. Both windows display masonic emblems, and were gifted in 1890.

Southside Slavery Legacies Project 2020

South Glasgow Heritage and Environment Trust are currently working on a Southside Slavery Legacies project, including a potential heritage trail and walks, as well as blogs on our website, and published articles. If you would like to know more or become involved, please contact info@sghet.com.

Sources:

Canmore: Maxwell Park

Canmore: Pollokshields Burgh Hall

Discover Glasgow

Friends of Maxwell Park

Legacies of British Slave-ownership

MeasuringWorth.com

Pollokshields Burgh Hall

Pollokshields Trust

Rias.Org

Runaway Slaves in Britain.

Scotland and the Slave Trade

Scottish Architects

Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow

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