The Mill Tavern

At the Mill Tavern

You feelin' alright? a little performance by the bluescasters

The importance of socialising

After a short visit to the local pub and discussing with some more over 90 patients I have realised the importance of the pub in the British life.

South shields UFO

strange object

Monckton Coke and Chemical Works

Music: Zeds Dead - Rudeboy

Pollok Country Park.

Pollok Country Park - a good park ruined by transport! Years ago you could walk through this Park and never see let alone hear or potentially get knocked down by a car: nowadays its like walking alongside a dual carriageway. Gates and car-parks (while retaining courtesy buses for the elderly and infirm) would guess what - yeah make everyone else walk - it is a park after all!!!!

This video begins in Pollokshaws on the approach to the Pollokshaws Road entrance to the Park. Pollokshaws was a burgh until 1912 when it was annexed to the City of Glasgow. An industrial area, this changed in 1957 when it was proposed as the second Comprehensive Development Area in Glasgow. Some of the tower blocks that subsequently filled the landscape are now in the process of being demolished. The Round Toll was once licensed and was popular with race goers at the Shaws Races. During 1973 a memorial was erected in the Shaws (in what the locals referred to as the 'beer garden' in front of the old town hall) in memory of the district's most famous son. The inscription:-
In Memory of John Maclean
Born in Pollokshaws on 24th August 1879
Died 30th November 1923
FAMOUS PIONEER OF WORKING CLASS EDUCATION
HE FORGED THE SCOTTISH LINK IN THE
GOLDEN LINK OF WORLD SOCIALISM.

He is even captured in song as Matt McGinn wrote 'The Ballad of John MacLean. Born at 59 King Street, Pollokshaws in 1879, his father was a potter at Lockhart's Victoria Pottery in Cogan Street; his mother was a weaver from Nitshill who came to Pollokshaws to work in the Auldfield Mill, also in Cogan Street. He received his elementary education at Pollok Academy and, as a young man, obtained a degree from Glasgow University and became a teacher in Lorne Street School, Govan. He was already taking an active interest in politics, and in 1903 he joined the Social Democratic Federation, a revolutionary organisation of which he formed a branch in Pollokshaws, holding weekly meetings at the Shaw Brig or in Towns house Square

Theres too many notable characters of Shaws origin to mention but ... George Bennie designer of the famous Bennie Railplane, was born in 1891 in a 24-room mansion house - Auldhousefield.

BETTY BURNS, daughter of our National Bard, who married Pollokshaws weaver John Thomson (he had been a soldier, then was a handloom weaver in Pollokshaws), is buried in the Shaws (Kirk Lane) cemetery. They are reputed to have lived in Shawlands in a building that stood between Abbot Street and the present day Minard Road, but latterly lived in Pollokshaws. Betty Burns was born in 1790, and when she died in 1873 she was buried in the Old Vennel graveyard where her tombstone can be seen. She had a daughter, Margaret, who married David Wingate a Pollokshaws weaver and poet of some local fame. Betty Burns was the illegitimate daughter of the poet Robert Burns and Anna Park. She was born in Leith and lived there with her aunt until she was two. She then went to Dumfries where she was brought up by Jean Armour, her father's wife. Her elder son Robert Burns Thomson lived in Carment Drive, Shawlands.

James Tassie (1735 - 1799) was a Scottish gem-engraver and modeller and now has a pub (formerly the Hogshead) named after him in Shawlands. He was born of humble parentage at Pollokshaws, Glasgow.

ALLAN GLEN Was born in Pollokshaws in 1778. When he died in 1850 he bequeathed £22,000 for the 'Practical Education for Boys', and a school named after him was founded in Cathedral Street in 1854.

MURDOCH MCKINNON entered the service of the then Clyde Navigation Harbours workshops on 16th Nov 1932 and in 1973 received the British Empire Medal for his services to the community. He stayed at 215 Shawbridge Street, a tower block now destined for demolition.

ALEX NORTON is another Shaws boy, probably best known for his current role as DCI Matt Burke in the long running Glasgow based detective series Taggart.

The Shaws was also famous for its Mad 9th Company of the Boys Brigade who won their football league 40-years ago in 1970, Their residency was the old (now demolished) Pollokshaws Clinic.

In the Estate itself, the house beyond the Burrell has been home to one of Scotland's famous Gaelic singers and teachers, for many years.

Sir John Stirling Maxwell was involved in trying to resolve the protracted problem of finding a home for the art treasures presented to Glasgow in 1944 by Sir William Burrell. After his death, his daughter gave Pollok House, a substantial proportion of the estate and her father's art collection to the Glasgow Corporation. This gift of land eventually allowed the Glasgow city fathers to erect a building to hold the Burrell Collection. The nearby school is named after him, as is a pub in Shawlands.