Get fit, get a warm glow and help improve the quality of our river for wildlife and for everyone!

Wear old clothes and strong shoes or wellies. We will provide gloves and grabbers

Morning Session – 10.30 am at Kelvin Bridge Subway Station

Finishing at Ha’ Bridge House at  12.00 for barbecue lunch. (donation from £2.50)

Afternoon Session   2.00pm – 4.00 at  Ha’penny Bridge House

Mug of coffee/tea at 4.00pm

There will be no evening barbecue

Photo by Jani Helle and shared on Flickr

Got a great photo of the Kelvin? Share it on Flickr and add it to the River Kelvin group (When you join the group it asks you to agree that any photos can be used on fork.org.uk

Get fit, get a warm glow and help improve the quality of our river for wildlife and for everyone!
Wear old clothes and strong shoes or wellies. We will provide gloves and grabbers

Meet at Kelvingrove Park at War Memorial (park entrance at Kelvin Way Toilets and over main Bridge)

We usually finish around 12

Evening barbecue later that day at Ha’penny Bridge House. Burgers will be available from £2.50 Bring your own wine etc and own food if you wish.

Reminder – Clean Up this Saturday

Get fit, get a warm glow and help improve the quality of our river for wildlife and for everyone!

Wear old clothes and strong shoes or wellies. We will provide gloves and grabbers.

Meet at The Snow Bridge, near Kelvingrove Museum.

We usually finish around 12

Great photo by jamesdunbar42 and shared on Flickr

Got a great photo of the Kelvin? Share it on Flickr and add it to the River Kelvin group (When you join the group it asks you to agree that any photos can be used on fork.org.uk

Get fit, get a warm glow and help improve the quality of our river for wildlife and for everyone!

Wear old clothes and strong shoes or wellies. We will provide gloves and grabbers.

Meet at Ha’penny Bridge House, just outside the west end of the Botanic Gardens, off Ford Road. Or cross the Botanic Gardens Bridge and turn left along the walkway.

We usually finish around 12

Many mill sites supported two or more mills, all of which were powered by the same dam on the Kelvin.  Dawsholm (or Dalsholm) had two entirely separate mill sites, both sharing the Dawsholm name, but each with their own dam and lade. In this issue we look at the lower  site, which we will call Lower Dawsholm.

Double railway viaducts over the Kelvin, with dam in foreground

The story starts at the earliest bleachfield in Scotland, at  Dalquhurn on the River Leven, near Dumbarton, established in 1715. In 1728 this bleachfield was purchased by William Stirling. In 1750 Stirling’s nephew, also William Stirling, started a printfield at Dawsholm on the Kelvin. The printfield works washed, bleached and printed linen and calico textiles, particularly handkerchiefs. The lade from the river was used to power machinery, including the wash mill. Water for processing may also have come from the Kelvin. However the river water was often  too brown and silty for this. The water therefore had first to be settled in a reservoir. The water for processing might also have come from a local spring.

Dawsholm Printfield was advertised many times in the Glasgow press from the 1760s onwards. In 1770 William Stirling moved back to the River Leven, where he started another printworks at Cordale. As a result there was some interaction and engagement between management and workforce across the two sites, and this facilitated a movement of labour from one to another as the market changed. The Stirlings were succeeded by William Robb, a calico printer from Partick. In the early 1790s Dawsholm was acquired by Richard, son of William Gillespie of South
Woodside.

The ruined dam can be difficult to see nowadays

By the 1870s Dawsholm Printworks was redundant and the site was purchased by Glasgow Corporation in order to build a new gasworks. As part of this redevelopment, the general ground level of the site was raised appreciably, right to the riverbank. The higher level makes it quite difficult to envisage now how the site supported a water mill, as today it seems to be too high above the Kelvin.
Dawsholm Mill lade commenced at a dam nearby, 200 metres upstream from the double railway viaducts over the Kelvin (a brick and stone viaduct built side by side) which serve Maryhill station. The dam on the river is mostly ruined, and can be difficult to see, especially when the

Kelvin is in spate. When the river is low, a few courses of the dam are visible on the north bank, as well as the general slight fall in the river.

On the north bank of the river the remnant of the lade leads to one of the aches in the railway viaduct. Beyond the viaduct the ground level of the former gasworks now rises dramatically. The lade originally continued for a further 200 metres to the site of the printworks, stretching down to what is currently Skaethorn Road.

The use of the ‘Dawsholm’ name for this site and the next site upstream often makes it hard to differentiate the two mill sites in written sources. The next mill, Dawsholm Paper Mill, will be covered in the next issue.

The Lost Mills of The Kelvin is taken from the Spring 20010 edition of FORK News

The freezing weather made it hard for birds to find enough food and there was a dramatic increase in the number of birds  –  and species  –  coming into the city. Redwing in particular were present in large numbers with a flock of 30 or more in the Botanic Gardens on 27 and 28 December.  Fieldfare, Redwing,  Mistle  Thrush,  Song Thrush and  Bullfinches were regular visitors at garden

feeding stations. My most unusual sighting was of a Woodcock seen on the 8th of January flying low with rapid wingbeats along Kew Terrace towards Byres Road.

Woodcock - Hazel Mills

Other bird recorders reported seeing a Woodcock, apparently flushed by a fox, in the Arboretum on 3 January, and on 7 January there were sightings in Glasgow University campus and on the banks of the Kelvin in Kelvingrove Park. Woodcock are normally difficult birds to observe as they are secretive and mainly nocturnal in habit. These large waders have short legs, a long straight bill and large eyes. Their beautifully marked plumage, reddish-brown above with dark barring on buff under parts, provides the perfect camouflage for forest floors. They feed on invertebrates such as worms, beetles, spiders and small snails that they find by probing leaf litter and damp soil with their long bills.

It will be some time before we know how well our resident birds along the Kelvin have survived the harsh winter. Small birds such as Goldcrest and Wren that rely on insects for food are likely to have been hard hit, and Kingfishers and Heron may also have suffered when the river and canal froze over. Extreme weather highlights the important role that garden feeding plays in bird conservation, and keeping reliable records is the key to understanding how weather impacts bird populations.

If you are interested in contributing to a year-round recording programme you might consider joining the British Trust for Ornithology’s Garden BirdWatch. The BTO organisers are actively looking for more recorders in Scotland as there are fewer than 1000 at the moment.

As I write the breeding season is well underway with Blue Tits and  Great Tits inspecting nest boxes and Magpies and  Long-tailed Tits already building their nests. The Goosanders have returned to their summer breeding grounds and Sand Martins are on their way back, with sightings already confirmed at Baron’s Haugh south of

Glasgow on the Clyde. Last newsletter’s species list is already out of date, as we need to add Tawny Owl, heard calling along the banks of the Kelvin in January,  Black-headed Gull, on the  river at Wyndford, Fieldfare and Woodcock, bringing the new total to 52.

FORK Bird Report taken from the Spring 2010 edition of FORK News

Photo by JanuaryJoe on Flickr

See more photos in the River Kelvin group

The second award presentation, also for community focussed projects, was sponsored by the Clean Glasgow Campaign and was held in the Banqueting Hall of the Glasgow City Chambers. Another impressive event, and with a personal touch, as the chair for the evening, John Summers, the Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful, commented that Friends of the River Kelvin was ‘well known’ to him as it was under his predecessor’s wing that we were set up.

Closer to ‘home’ and the comings and goings of H.B.H,

Charles Thompson continues to look after our base house excellently.  He enjoys being visited by FORKs, so do make an effort to go and look him up.  His mobile telephone number is 07505 953080.  It would be a good idea if you telephoned first to find out when he planned to be in residence. Charles is assisted by FORK Cliff Giddings and his team who keep some of their canoe equipment in H.B.H. Charles arranged the April Clean-Ups, desperately needed at this time of year. Thanks to all who participated.

Spring 2010 FORK Newsletter – pdf version

Woodcock Cover by Hazel Mills

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