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Carmunnock Road, GLASGOW, G44 5HL

Aikenhead House, a Category A listed building, sits in the middle of King's Park, which used to form part of its estate. The mansion house, along with the grounds that now make up today's public park, were donated to the city in the 1930s by a developer shortly after he/they bought the full estate (which covered an area about four times the size of King's Park) and got to work building 3000 new houses. Glasgow City Council, or whatever name they went by back then, opened the house to the public a few years later as a costume museum. Then the war came along and it was used as some kind of intelligence HQ. After that it was used to store - though not display from what I can gather - the artworks and objects that make up the Burrell Collection. Considering these items were donated to Glasgow in 1944, and the Burrell Collection - a purpose-built museum located in Pollock Country Park, not too far awy - did not open its doors until 1983, they might well have been kept in this house for a very long time. Once the artworks and artefacts were rehoused the building was boarded up. Due to the building's listed status, demolition - though considered - was never properly on the cards, and in the mid 1980s it was sold on to a private developer and converted into 14 flats. The estate agents often describe it as a "neoclassical masterpiece" designed by "the father of Glasgow architecture" David Hamilton when selling the flats on. It was built in the first decade of the 1800s and was modified a little shortly afterwards. A ground floor flat comprising a bedroom, bathroom and living room/kitchen is currently under offer for £156,000.

Aikenhead House, situated within King's Park public park, was built on the site of a much earlier 17th century mansion. The main house was built in 1806 and the wings were added in 1823. In 1986, Aikenhead House was converted to contain 14 flats.

This Category A listed building dating from 1806 is in the centre of King's Park. In the early 1980s there were plans to turn the building into a museum to house Glasgow Museums' fine collection of costumes, but the discovery of extensive dry rot in the building meant it would be too expensive. Glasgow City Council instead sold the building to developers, who converted the house into flats in 1986.

This Category A listed building, dating from 1806 is in the centre of King's Park. In the early 1980s there were plans to turn the building into a museum to house Glasgow Museums' fine collection of costumes, but the discovery of extensive dry rot in the building meant it would be too expensive. Glasgow City Council instead sold the building to developers, who converted the house into flats in 1986.

This monumental sundial is fairly close to the similarly huge Aikenhead House in King's Park, Glasgow. It got transported here in the 1930s shortly after part of the original Aikenhead estate was gifted to the city by a developer. Presumably the developer had realised that such big profits would arise from the building of thousands of houses on the former estate's land that this grand gesture could be afforded. Whilst undoubtedly impressive, the sundial is also a bit silly. Four very unfeminine-looking bare-breasted creatures support an octagon, which in turn supports four bearded faces who share a silly tall hat. This is only the start of the silliness though. Each side of the octagon has its own sundial. (Sadly one or two of the gnomons - the metal bits that cast the shadow - are missing, and all the rest have been twisted out of shape by vandals.) At least one, probably two, and perhaps more of these sundials are superfluous however. The sun only rises due East and sets due West at the equinoxes. In the summer the sun rises in the NorthEast, and sets in the NorthWest, both of these positions becoming more Northerly as the summer solstice is approached. Somewhere online, a fairly official looking site says that at 56° North - which is roughly the latitude of Glasgow - the sun rises at 42° and sets at 318° on the summer solstice (North being 0°). I'm nowhere near clever enough to do the maths, but am certain that this means the time could be told even on the longest day without reference to the full eight sundials! The thinking must have been to do it because they could. Well, in the 1600s at least - as this apparently is something of a 'tribute' sundial to a famous one made back then. Fair enough I suppose.

Looking towards Carmunnock Road from the car park of the Christ the King RC church car park.

Magpies scavenging near a stand of trees north of the King's Park area of Rutherglen, Glasgow.

When I first came to Glasgow I was told that it has the most green space per head of population of all UK cities. I don't know if that's true but there are 90+ parks and gardens. King's Park is one of them, offering a pleasant space for the surrounding residential areas of Simshill, Castlemilk, Croftfoot and indeed King's Park.

Wheelie bins awaiting the council bin lorry.