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NEXT CLEAN UP
Next Clean Up Saturday 4th February. Meet at Ha’Penny Bridge House at 10.30 am.

It has communal dining and kitchens. It’s being built just feet away from the precious tree-lined river frontage on the Kelvin.

See Image below.

If built, this block will ruin one of the city’s favourite green riverside views (the one from Kelvin Bridge looking East), and change daily life for hundreds of people in what is now a quiet residential area. The structure, which is completely out of character with its surroundings, will:

Overshadow nearby homes.
Compromise the peaceful setting of the riverbank.
Cause major noise pollution.
Invade people’s privacy.

To make matters worse, the building itself will be a ‘budget’ construction – specifically designed to meet the tight financial demands of Glasgow University’s business plan for student accommodation. A campaign group of local residents has formed an organisation called LANSDOWNE WATCH to fight this appalling proposal – and, in the longer term, to act as a forum for important events affecting all residents of Lansdowne and the surrounding area.

To join us – or find out more about what YOU can do to stop this building – visit our website at: www.lansdownewatch.com

Or send a short email to: lansdownewatch1@hotmail.co.uk

In addition, you could phone Glasgow City Council on 0141-287-2000 and ask for details of Planning Application 11/00999/DC, then write to your MSP and city councillor to offer your views.

Their contact details are listed below:

MSP: Sandra White. Sandra.White.msp@scottish.parliament.uk

Councillors: Kenneth Elder kenneth.elder@councillors.glasgow.gov.uk

George Roberts george.roberts@councillors.glasgow.gov.uk

Bailie Hanzala Malik hanzala.malik@councillors.glasgow.gov.uk

Martha Wardrop martha.wardrop@councillors.glasgow.gov.uk

Time is short. The property developer has already submitted a Planning Application which allows a limited number of days for objections to be registered. If you want to have your say, please don’t delay.

Thank you.

Best Wishes,

Steve Bailey,

Chairman,

LANSDOWNE WATCH

Come along and help clean the River kelvin Banks within Kelvingrove Park. Wear stong foot wear and warm clothing.

Litter Grabbers, yellow bibs, waterproof gloves, safety instructions and lots of bin bags will be provided.
If you have a whistle or pocket alarm please bring along.

Soup, rolls, coffee, tea etc will be provided from 12.30pm at the Ha’ Penny Bridge House, 135 Kelvin Drive, ( R Kelvin Walkway) for a donation of £2.50

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

Lunch from 12.30 at HBH.

All You Have to Do is turn Up at Ha’penny Bridge House on Friday 28 January at 10.30am for 2 Hour Work Shop on Sustainable Communities

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

Clean Ups will be at  10:30 am and 2:00 pm at  Ha’penny Bridge House

Lunch will be from 12.00.

All members are welcome to come to the lunch

Summer/Autumn 2010 FORK Newsletter – pdf version

April saw the return of the warblers – Blackcap and Chiffchaff in the Botanic Gardens, and Willow Warbler further upstream at Dawsholm. Sand Martins are one of the earliest migrants to arrive, usually reaching central Scotland in late March. At least eight of the Sand Martin nests were occupied this spring – if you stand on the Benalder Street bridge and look downstream towards the Clyde you will get a good view of the nest sites, which are in the wall that bounds the right bank of the Kelvin. By 20 June the nests were empty Sand Martins were still present, feeding above the river. About a quarter of the pairs may attempt a second brood. Sadly there seemed to be very few Swifts again this year – I saw no more than four together at any one time throughout the entire summer.

Many of our small birds must have survived the long spell of bitterly cold winter weather as there were plenty of Wrens with territories along both banks of the river, and good numbers of Blue Tits. However my impression is that numbers of Long-tailed Tits were down and I saw fewer Goldcrest than usual. There were also fewer sightings of Greenfinch, which may have been due not to the winter weather the prevalence of trichomonosis, a disease caused by a parasite. Transmission is most likely to occur through contaminated food or water, so those of us who feed our garden birds should be careful to clean and disinfect feeders regularly and move them to different sites of the garden every so often. More detailed information is available from www.ufaw.org.uk/gbhi.php.

In May there were two broods of Mallards by Kelvinbridge, and Blue Tits were bringing caterpillars to their young in a nest in the wall by the Big Blue. After a dry spell the water level was so low that Dippers were able to feed on the face of the weir below Queen Margaret Bridge.

In the second half of June Song Thrushes were feeding fledglings opposite the arboretum and there were families of Blue Tits, Great Tits and Long-tailed Tits between the Ha’penny Bridge and Kelvingrove Park. A young Great Spotted Woodpecker was observed at Dawsholm. Kingfishers have been seen throughout the summer along the stretch of the river from the Ha’penny Bridge to Kelvinbridge I do not know of any nests.

Each year a few of the Goosanders stay on during the breeding season, and on 16 July a female was keeping a watchful eye on a brood of six well-grown youngsters who were diving for food along the riverbank by the arboretum bridge. On 16 August a large flock of Blue Tits, Long-tailed Tits and Goldcrest were foraging in the tree canopy – a sure sign that autumn is on the way.

Bullfinches were seen in the arboretum throughout the summer. These beautiful birds are quite secretive and can be hard to spot when the trees are in full leaf often their soft distinctive ‘peu peu’ call gives them away.

Thanks to David Barry for this photo of a female mallard with her chicks on the Kelvin

As we saw in the last edition of FORK, two separate mill sites on the Kelvin bore the ‘Dawsholm’ name. Here we look at the upstream site, ‘upper’ Dawsholm. Both upper and lower Dawsholm first appear as mill sites in the 1750s, although they are quite possibly much older.

One of the earliest references to upper Dawsholm appeared in an advert in the Glasgow press in February 1755, placed there by the trustees of the deceased James Graham of Dawsholm. The lower Dawsholm in this reference indicated the seventy acre lands of Dawsholm, including the houses, mills and machinery of two snuff mills and a paper mill, all in working order. Roy’s military map, from around the same date, shows the mills and denotes the lade.

This mill was situated at the west end of the old four- arched sandstone bridge where Dawsholm Road (now pedestrian access only) crosses the Kelvin. A string of buildings stretched down the riverbank below the bridge, some built out into the river on columns. Little of this now survives apart from some of the foundations.

Dawsholm is a good example of one mill site having various uses; all powered from the same lade. The earliest known use of the site was as a snuff mill, in about 1745. A paper mill was also operating soon after. The combination of paper and snuff mills is curious as there is no obvious link between the processes, although both paper and snuff mills were common in the Glasgow area. Dawsholm was still operating as both types of mills in 1795. There are also references to a grain or barely mill in the eighteenth century.

The paper mill at Dawsholm was the longest lasting and largest mill on the site. For at least three generations from the 1780s the mill was worked by the McArthur family, who had a warehouse in Glassford Street in Glasgow. The mill continued operating through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, finally closing in 1970.

At first glance, very little remains on the site, compared with surviving photos of the mill. However, by walking upstream from the bridge, the large dam or weir and the start of the lade are evident. The lade provided water power for the machinery and drove the pulping mill. However the Kelvin was often too brown and silty to be used in the actual paper making process. A string of settling ponds was created above and west of the site, fed by a small burn. The ponds also survive.