CELEBRATING THE ORIGINAL, THE BIGGEST AND BEST-PRESERVED PLANNED GARDEN SUBURB IN THE UK Pollokshields SPRING 2011 HERITAGE ISSUE 60 POETRY in VISION ART IN THE SWIM! What are the iconic images that define ‘Fair Pollokshields’ today? A decade to the day after the Is it about the people? Is it a controversial closure of the Baths in particular place? What does Calder Street, the Friends of Govanhill Pollokshields mean to you? Can Baths dived into the large pool – to you capture it on camera? hold an Art Auction. .....“While all the beauties which surround this place Conducted by Gavin Strang of Auctioneers Are open to the sight, Lyon & Turnbull, with works donated by a host And in them many pleasures we may trace of established artists, the sale raised some To give our hearts delight.” £7K towards the regeneration of the building – wrote one Middlemass Brown, as the complex. final of his twelve stanzas on Phase One of the project – the refurbishment POLLOKSHIELDS, one of his Glasgow odes, of the front suite of the Baths – will provide on the occasion of the 1901 International for its use by the Trust as well as by its Centre Exhibition at the time of our suburb’s 50th for Community Practice. anniversary. You can read the other (stylistically dated) verses on our website Funds raised to date total £200,000, with – www.pollokshieldsheritage.org the particular and continuing support and sponsorship of Professor Alan Pert & NORD Architecture at the forefront of the campaign. The Trust’s Chairman Andrew Johnson, Auctioneer Gavin Strang, Curator Seth Orion- Schwaiger, Secretary Frances Diver and Treasurer Fatima Uygun huddle into one of the poolside cubicles. The main pool – flooded with discerning art lovers at the Auction on Saturday 19 March. In celebration of Pollokshields’ 160 years, we are mounting an exhibition of images past and present illustrating the history and This year’s Annual General Meeting will be held on heritage of our garden suburb, its features, WEDNESDAY 27 APRIL at 7.30 p.m. with a reception from 7 p.m. at the changing lifestyles, and the people who've FOTHERINGAY CENTRE and at 8 p.m. a presentation by lived here, worked here, gone to school Professor ALAN DUNLOP FRIAS here. architect of the Hazelwood School for the sensory impaired in Bellahouston We welcome your contributions – please email your photos and comments to and previously, with responsibility for the reconstruction of Maxwell Park [email protected] by the Station. He is an established commentator on architecture, design and end of June. A selection of the images from social issues. Glasgow credits are the award-winning our photo exhibition will be reproduced as notelet / cards to be available later in the Sentinel building and the Radisson Hotel. year. ALL WELCOME Even if you don’t submit any photos to us, do please take a picture of your house, local greenspace and perhaps the street you live in, note the date and file it away with your Final Issue! see back page property documents and personal records! TERRA FIRMA GARDENS Susan Gallagher BA(Hons) Landscape Architecture 0141 429 6267/07985 070433 Visit our website at: www.terrafirmagardens.com Design Matters: has taken over ownership of some Pollokshields is host to Glasgow’s only additional 1033 properties from diplomatic presence – the GHA, 499 of them in the CONSULATE OF PAKISTAN – the Pollokshields. They include the ‘deck access’ flats along St other 24 being honorary consulates. Andrew’s Drive and Maxwell Drive. The stylish internal regeneration Within a five year time frame, six of the villa in Maxwell Drive of these blocks are to be includes floors of marble from demolished while others are being Pakistan and a variety of artifacts retained and refurbished and memorabilia, besides meantime, starting this year, with traditionally-restored reception a total budget of approximately rooms. £13m. The transfer also includes the post-WW2 tenement blocks The State Emblem of Parkistan in Leslie Street and Kenmure shows the main crops – cotton, Street as well as the ‘mini multis’ tea, wheat and jute within a in St Andrew’s Drive, and the wreath of jasmine, the national A fine silk Pakistani wall hanging. properties in Maxwell Grove, flower. The Pakistan motto – Faith, A roundel with the Pakistan Gardens and Drive. The take-over Unity, Discipline – is at the bottom insignia hangs at the back of the trebles the SHA’s portfolio of and the National Flag at the top. hall. housing stock in the south of the city; and they will also take on the factoring arrangements for In the PRIVATE HOUSING sector, at the top 1% end, individual Clydesdale will also be the first most of it. investment reaches £5m, in both new-build and the substantial sporting venue in Scotland development of some of the largest villas. This is as high as capable of hosting both hockey anywhere in Scottish suburbs; but at the other end, comments and cricket matches at full property agents’ elder statesman, ROY SLATER, “With new- international level. starts in construction facing a new all-time low, we are building up a critical problem of ‘No New Homes’ in 2011-2015.” The public consultation about Housing development activity Cricket Club is upgrading its Pollok Park Management around Eglinton Toll now synthetic hockey pitch at its Plans and Park Development carried out at the end of 2010 Their new-build apartments in St seems mothballed and there is Titwood ground to enthusiatically endorsed Andrew’s Road are now complete no significant investment in international standard this investigating the development of and all 30 units for rent have the public arena in summer, at a cost of more than a hydroelectric scheme using the been allocated. An additional 12 Pollokshields. The funding £250,000. The project is being redundant weir and lade of the units for shared equity sale are approved by the Scottish supported by a contribution of White Cart Water in Pollok Park. The restoration of the Old Stable also complete but these have sold government for the new Health £70,000 from sportscotland. quickly and only three currently Courtyard is also a potential Centre, together with the plans Included in the works will be remain unsold. aspiration. for a new school within the an irrigation system that The NAN McKAY HALL Pollokshields Community draws water from boreholes committee is now forging stronger Please note: Maxwell Park Campus, is inadequate to rather than the mains, to keep links with the SHA to create a deliver the integrated project. Station Booking Office is core partnership tackling issues the club’s carbon footprint as available as a small meeting of housing, isolation and low as possible. The first place or exhibition venue for deprivation – and the vital task of With the 2014 Commonwealth Scottish club to own its own community activities. Contact creating new premises. Games in its sights, Clydesdale water-based hockey pitch, [email protected] Maxwell Square Enhancement Work is underway at the ‘square park’ to complete the final section of the upgrade designed and agreed several years ago. A central path is being introduced with an avenue of trees and a new centre feature. The £58,000 make-over also involves restructuring the entrances, additional seating, picnic benches to facilitate wheelchairs, new litter bins, a mature beech hedge and new planting. Meantime the LESLIE STREET GREENSPACES GROUP’s lighting design project has been stalled on account of maintenance issues and alternative proposals for new planting, resurfacing, boundary treatments and benches are being explored. And the EAST POLLOKSHIELDS QUAD GROUP has applied for permission to install specially-designed gates at either end of the adjacent lane between Kenmure Street and Darnley Street. TWO FLOORS OF WE ARE FLOORING MOVING! INSPIRATION 15 MUIREND ROAD ALL THE LEADING MUIREND MANUFACTURERS G44 3QR COME AND VISIT OUR SHOWROOM OR CALL 0141 637 5585 UNDER ONE ROOF Publications and Celebrations... “OLD POLLOKSHIELDS” We welcome this largely visual record of street scenes, lost buildings, THE FIRST FIFTY YEARS of and open spaces of Pollok our transport heritage, parks and public amenities, but alas the text Pollokshields defined our Country Park, and life and and captions are riddled with inaccuracies... So disappointing that the suburb and its amenity. The colour have reinvigorated the author made no effort to contact us in her researches, as the mistakes next fifty mostly held the line; shopping area with the could so easily have been avoided. We are happy to take responsibility the last sixty bear witness to establishment here of the for the errata published on our website www.pollokshieldsheritage.org considerable changes. largest Asian community in and would nonetheless encourage you to purchase ‘Old Pollokshields’ The era of the swimming baths Scotland; home deliveries are by Sandra Malcolm, pub. Stenlake @ £7.99 and enjoy a dip into and the Maxwell Park a returning feature, the scenes of bygone times. bandstand was already over overwhelming majority of our by the time the Crossmyloof handsome public buildings are Jack Kernahan’s revised and ice rink was demolished to still extant; the Sherbooke expanded book on “THE make way for a supermarket Hotel, the Burgh Hall and our CATHCART CIRCLE” is recently – resulting in the international arts centre at published – this time in stunning comprehensive variety of shops Tramway are all flourishing, hardback! The engrossing in Albert Drive, Maxwell Road property values are holding, tribulations of the men who and Nithsdale Road being with many of the post-war brought the railway to much diminished. Many of the conversions being reversed. Pollokshields and its subsequent conditions that uphold the We still have our railway lines development are engagingly told character and quality of our and our parks.