Standing Building Recording
Date 2009
Event ID 607068
Category Recording
Type Standing Building Recording
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/607068
NS 549 616 The focus of this year’s work was to re-assess and re-record many of the features in and around Pollok House (NS56SW 31.0). The aim was to attempt to identify any earlier remains of settlement in this area. As part of this work a standing building and photographic survey of the stables was undertaken. In conjunction with this a desktop survey of all published maps relating to the Nether Pollok estate was conducted to look for any significant structural changes. The estate plan of 1741 showed several buildings, including the gateway, inside a retaining wall, while the southern range facing the White Cart River, which was recorded during this
18th century survey, stood outside this compound. The phased development of the site reflects the changing requirements of the Pollok Estate and by the mid- to late 19th century virtually all traces of the earlier walled enclosure had been removed.
However, this year’s building survey found remains of the enclosure wall in the building fabric of the northern
range. Additional features included possible marriage stones incorporated into a 19th-century cottage in the courtyard, a large quantity of re-used stone from multiple structures, which have been set into the southern and north-western ranges of the site, and the reuse of smaller 18th-century domestic structures in 19th-century extensions to the stable complex. The recessed well-head described by the OS in 1954 was investigated and appears to be later than the initial gateway building, as the wall that the well-head is now
part of appears to be a different building phase, due to the presence of a now blocked-up gateway allowing access into the Walled Garden (NS56SW 31.1).
The stonework used to construct the majority of the complex was identified by Dr John Faithful, of the Hunterian Museum, as a sandstone belonging to the ‘Barrhead Grits’, due to the inclusion of large pieces of quartz in its matrix. This stone type was also used for the construction of Pollok House (NS56SW 31.0) and features in the building fabric of many of the stone buildings within the estate. Two locations for this stone were identified. One was immediately to the E on the S bank of the White Cart, which appears to have been the site of quarrying in the past. The other is a series of small quarries to the SE, now within the confines of Cowglen Golf Course. Investigation of 19th-century estate plans allowed for a limited survey of one of the larger quarries and it is entirely possible that this is the source for the stone used in parts of the range and Pollok House.
Archive: RCAHMS (intended)
Funder: Glasgow Archaeological Society
Mark Mitchell and Stephen Driscoll – Glasgow Archaeological Society
