A small number of us plus a couple of guests visited another 2 parks on the Scottish Rambler’s ‘ ‘Magnificent 11’ walk which covers 7 parks on the south side of Glasgow.
Castlemilk park is a little known park that has recently become the 100th local nature reserve in Scotland. It consists of the Daffodil Walk, Waterfall Walk & The Ice House Walk which have been graded for difficulty – with good descriptions of what to expect to see. We also enjoyed a short talk form the Local Community Woodland Officer who explained the extent of the work which has taken place in Castlemilk Park in the last 15 years to achieve this status. The local community, including a Youth Advisory panel, has been involved in important decisions regarding the developments – most of which were possible due to small grants.
We also visited Kings Park a march larger and well known park and heard about some of its history. An octagonal obelisk picqued our interest and after much googling we discovered Scotland seems to have a bit of an obsession with them!
On returning to Castlemilk Park we held our Diversity picnic as June is pride month ( which has become an annual feature in our summer programme) at The Jeely Piece Club (aka a Jam Sandwich) which stands on the former site of the now demolished Castlemilk House. It is now a soft play and community cafe/hub (NB with toilets) and we discovered that during WW2 many refugees from Guernsey were housed there – a connection for Maureen Nicol month.
FYI The Jeely Piece Club is named after a humorous Scottish song about the difficulties of living in post-war high rise flats ( such as were built in Castlemilk at that time – many are still around) when mothers could no longer throw a wrapped Jeely ( or ham/cheese) peice down to their children whilst they were playing below. Castlemilk has been extensively redeveloped in recent years which has brought to the fore little gems like Castlemilk Park. You can find the song on YouTube if you’re interested – it references a Jeely piece and Castlemilk. Here’s a link to a young busker singing it in Glasgow city centre. https://youtu.be/4ukSXTH8SXA?si=QZiePRS_sJ_n5Vyg (NB All images are with permission including the Leaflet).