• Gate on steps at east end: all Owners will be asked Seen from across the Kelvin (TB) to approve the addition of a gate at the top of the steps, subject to planning approval. • Incomplete and defective works: both David Wilson Homes and NHBC have been slow in responding to requests for action. NPM are pursuing this matter. NEWS • AGM: because of ongoing COVID restrictions, it is currently planned to hold the AGM on 1 October 2021. OF THE BOTANICS March-April 2021 MEET A NEIGHBOUR Andrew Stenson and his wife Audrey moved to the Botanics in September 2017 NEWS is made available, via emails and the publicly- after spending 27 years in accessible part of the Botanics website to residents of The Botanics, on behalf of The Botanics Owners’ Committee. nearby Kelvindale. He Views expressed are not necessarily those of the wasn’t particularly interested Committee. in moving, but when walking Editors: Les Brown & Heidi Catto-Breslin (photo: TB). their dog along the Kelvin, he would often look across to the construction site thinking CORONAVIRUS SPECIAL (6) that the best plot of the When we headed our May-June 2020 issue: development by far would be the top flat facing the "Coronavirus Special (5)", we didn't expect to be Kelvin in the 3rd block. Months later, when the using that heading a year later. We ken the noo. Botanics had almost sold out, Audrey persuaded The senior citizens among us will mostly have Andrew to attend a viewing of a flat. During that visit received their first jags by now, and some they were informed that another flat had come back optimism is justified, if vaccinations and basic on the market - did they wish to see it? And yes, you’ve guessed it - it was the top floor river-facing flat precautions continue. Let's hope that we won't get at no. 7! And when the next door neighbour told them to Coronavirus Special (7) or more. Stay safe, (during their chat on the balcony) to “just buy it!”, they neighbours, and walk happily (see page 3). paid their deposit there and then, and the rest is Stenson family history! Andrew was brought up in Leven, Fife. He spent nine COMMITTEE NEWS years studying and working in Edinburgh, where he A quick read of the highlights of the latest met Audrey. They moved to Glasgow in 1988, just Zoom meeting, on 23rd February 2021 before the city’s Garden Festival and its turn (in 1990) as European City of Culture - a fabulous introduction (the Minutes are now distributed directly to Owners, to the delights that Glasgow had to offer: they were and can also be read in full on The Botanics website) won over by Glasgow’s charm offensive! • Landscape enhancement: Owners will be asked to Andrew had studied design and worked in consultancy approve expenditure on a new box hedge around the before joining a fashion retailer as a store designer & grassed area at the vehicular entrance to the project manager. During his 25 years in retail project Gardens. The main reason for this is to discourage management, Andrew opened stores in the UK from dog fouling. Penzance to Lerwick, and in the Middle East, Europe, • Bike-stores: Owners of apartments should use only Libya, Pakistan and China. an equitable share of the space (this varies from block Andrew has always had a passion for art. He regularly to block), and no flammable, combustible or attends life drawing classes throughout Glasgow. He hazardous materials should be stored. Owners at 1 & has exhibited at the Paisley Art Institute Annual 3 Hamilton Gardens will also asked if they want a Exhibition and is involved with open studio events in combination lock added to their bike-store door. Fife, so he and Audrey split their time between there • Window cleaning: Newton Property Management and the Botanics. (NPM) are exploring the possible use of cherry-pickers Cycling is Andrew’s other passion. He participated in a to carry out an occasional 'deep clean' of the coast-to-coast charity cycle across Mexico, followed problematic river-facing window-walls. by Land's End to John O’Groats the following year, • Green algae on brickwork: apartment Owners both times for MacMillan Cancer Support. He has will be asked to approve work to remove, possibly been nominated “Individual Fundraiser of the Year", 6-monthly, the unsightly bloom. and presented with an award at the House of Lords. 1 He continues to cycle around Glasgow with neighbours, with There were at least two paper mills on the river at Dalsholm a common theme of restaurant stops. and Kelvindale. Paper-mill effluent fermented in its passage Recently, he cycled the 355-mile Caledonia Way with down-river, absorbing oxygen, making a foul smell, and neighbours Jack and Gordon (as reported in the NEWS, Nov- rendering the river inhospitable to fish and other marine life. Dec 2020), and has big plans for future trips (post-Covid, of There were at least two, probably more, calico printing works. course). In both of these, filtered water would have been used to The Botanics has been the perfect fit for Andrew and Audrey, prepare cloth for printing and washing out excess dyestuffs, being at the heart of the West End, and yet tucked away just fixing solutions and bleaching agents. The contaminated enough to allow them to enjoy the tranquillity of the Kelvin, water would have been returned to the river. Other pollutants close to their balcony. They both enjoyed meeting new came from the North Woodside Flint Mill which used river neighbours who quickly became close friends, with whom water in the flint grinding process. they look forward to a time - It is in the nature of rivers that they were hopefully soon - when they can until comparatively recent years used to socialise again together on the dispose of human and animal waste, viewing platform, chilled beers in and for surface-water drainage. The use hand. HC-B of the ‘Snow Bridge’ (the first turnpike road bridge at Partick) to dispose of THE RIVER KELVIN snow from the streets, contaminated with horse waste, is an example of such The River Kelvin is not a large a practice. In the tidal section of the stream except in times of spate, but river, below the first Partick Bridge, it is the largest tributary of the Clyde drainage from the village would have in the vicinity of Glasgow, and it was been supplemented by tidal influx of for many centuries a significant both industrial waste and sewage from location for water-powered and Glasgow, and from vessels using the water-using industries. The Kelvin river. rises in the neighbourhood of After the various polluting sites were Kilsyth, and flows west and then closed in the 1960s and 1970s, the river south, entering the Clyde opposite was gradually cleaned up although Govan. Like most of Scotland, there is some indication that there are before the 16th century, travel by remaining contaminants in the river-bed water was preferred to travel by at some locations. (The author land if at all possible. River Kelvin, February 2021 photo: IS acknowledges use of material from the The Kelvin has probably been used Kelvin Biodiversity Network). DMcK for water-borne communication between the Clyde and the upper reaches of the river in prehistoric and early-historic times. But in the last 400-500 GOURMETS, years or so it was an effective power source for water-mills, Gastronomes, epicures, connoisseurs of haut cuisine! using artificial weirs. Another use of the waters of the Kelvin Breaking news for you: John MacLeod, the genius behind was to feed the summit level of the Forth and Clyde Canal uber-smart eatery Crabbshakk in Finnieston, intends to open after its construction commenced in 1768. Subsequently, it a new place on Vinicombe Street, along from Nando's. Woop! was also used for steam engines, and in paper-making and calico printing. And, regrettably, for the disposal of liquid LOCKDOWN READING #6 waste, including that from people and animals. Despite growing levels of pollution in the 18th and 19th centuries, the In The Midst Of Winter section of the river from Kelvindale to Kelvingrove was much by Isabel Allende appreciated for its scenic beauty. In the lower, tidal, section of Amid the biggest Brooklyn the river, at Partick, it was used for shipbuilding and ship- snowstorm in living memory, an repair, from the 1840s to the 1960s. There was even, for a unexpected friendship time in the 19th century, a rowing-boat ferry across the mouth blossoms between three people of the Kelvin. thrown together by Over the centuries, the most important use of the river for circumstance. A lonely university power was for grain milling. The oldest mills date from the professor in his sixties hits the car 1560s. The Regent Mills were acquired in 1910 by the driven by a young, undocumented Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, and continued to migrant from Guatemala. But what make their ‘Lofty Peak’ flour until about 1960. In the 18th at first seems an inconvenience takes an unforeseen and century, there was also a snuff mill, in which the stalks of darker turn when the migrant comes to him and his tobacco leaves were ground to make the fine powder that is neighbour desperately seeking help. Sweeping from present- the basis of snuff. The last user of Kelvin water for power was day Brooklyn to Guatemala to turbulent 1970s Chile and the North Woodside Mills, rebuilt in 1846 as a flint grinding Brazil, and woven with Isabel Allende's trademark humanity, mill until it closed around 1960.