IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Hillside Drive, GLASGOW, G78 1HA

Quite a steep slope amongst houses with a southward view.

For related pictures, click on the end-note title. For another contributor's earlier picture, see Image This structure is a relic of the Cold War era (see the end-note). The access hatch is on the right. Mounted on top of the louvred block (which was a ventilation shaft) that is in front of the access hatch is something shaped like a squat mushroom; this is the GZI mount, which supported the Ground Zero Indicator: it is shown in close-up in Image That instrument had photosensitive paper and pinholes, and functioned rather like a sunshine recorder, but its function was to record the direction and elevation of nuclear blasts. Some separate structures are visible on the left. In front is the small FSM mount: Image Behind it is another ventilation shaft: Image The earlier picture by another contributor (Image) was taken when the vegetation in the area on the left was shorter, and it shows all of the structures at this site very clearly. In that picture, a dark cylindrical object can be seen projecting from the left-hand side of the second ventilation shaft; that cylindrical object was the cover for a radio aerial. I show it in close-up in another picture: Image Its presence here indicates that Barrhead was a master post (the ROC posts were grouped in clusters, with one "master post" per cluster). For a more distant view, showing the site in context, see Image

For context, and for more information, see Image In that picture, this structure appears amongst the tall vegetation on the left, directly behind the Image The ROC post had ventilation louvres beside its main access hatch (shown on the right in the first picture linked above), but the structure shown in the present view had additional louvres, and allowed air circulation, for better ventilation of the underground post. On its left side, though obscured by vegetation, is a radio aerial cover: on another visit, not much later, I photographed it: Image

For context, and for the main description, see Image At the back, in the present photograph, is the access hatch. In front of it is the GZI Mount, the support for the Ground Zero Indicator. The instrument itself, no longer present, was in the form of a drum with pinholes, and with photosensitive paper inside. It worked on similar lines to a sunshine recorder, but its purpose was to record the direction and elevation of nuclear blasts.

This picture is intended only to show the structure in context. For a closer look, and for more information, see Image, and the other pictures that are linked from there.

For context, and for more information, see Image In that view, this small structure is amongst the tall vegetation on the left, in front of Image This is the FSM Mount (or FSM tube). It supported the Fixed Survey Meter, an instrument that measured ionising radiation (from fallout); wires from the instrument led down through this tube to the underground ROC post.

The view is from beside the Image, which I had come across by accident (the trip was unplanned, and I had no map), and it shows the grassy slopes typical of this part of the hills. Barrhead itself is the built-up area in the background. My attention was also drawn to the skyline, and to the small hills visible there. The one at the extreme right is Image in Image ("so called from its resemblance to a pillion" – OS Name Books). The one at the centre of the skyline is Duncarnock in Image, where there is an ancient hill-fort (Image). On the origins of the name Fereneze itself, see Image

An Underground Monitoring Post of The Royal Observer Corps sits below Fereneze Golf Course.

The upright structure as a whole is shown in Image; the radio aerial cover is the object that is shown in the present picture as projecting from its near side. For the main description of the remains here, and for a view in context, see Image ROC posts were grouped in clusters, with one master post for each cluster; the presence of a radio aerial here indicates that Barrhead ROC was one such master post.

The fence is encountered after walking a little further along the old path shown in Image The skyline hill a little left of centre is Neilston Pad (Image) in Image ("so called from its resemblance to a pillion" – OS Name Books). The Old Statistical Account (1792) had earlier commented on the name: "The craig of Nielston, in the south part of the parish is the highest in the district, and the only hill which stands by itself, not forming a ridge or tract of the country. It is vulgarly called the Pad, from having in its appearance the form of a pillion. It is 820 feet about the flood mark, and yet is all green, and arable to the very top, though now only used for pasture." The book "Paisley Poets" (1890) elaborates: "The Pad is a local vulgar name given to the Crag of Neilson, from its having the form of a pillion or cushion for a woman to ride behind another person on horseback." The hill on the right, beside the point where the foreground hillside hides the distant skyline from view, is Knockenae Plantation (Image) in Image Some distant wind turbines are visible. Those almost behind the Knockenae Plantation are centred on c.Image Others, near the far left edge of the picture, are centred on c.Image - - • - - The name Fereneze itself is of interest, and local historians have given several different explanations for it (the name struck me as having an odd feel, which is what prompted me to look further into its origin). For example, Robert Brown, in the first volume of his "History of Paisley" (1886), had explained it as "fir ness", that is, "the promontory or upland of firs". David Pride, author of "A History of the Parish of Neilston" (1910), understood it to be derived from Gaelic words meaning "alder meadow" or "alder marsh". More recently, G W S Barrow, in his book "The Kingdom of the Scots" (2003), pointed out that "Fereneze" is a "ghost-name", one that had "apparently arisen through the misinterpretation of a term occurring in documents of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries". Some very early forms of the name can be found in the Paisley charters, which were written in Latin. Transcriptions of them were published in the "Registrum Monasterii de Passelet" (Maitland Club Edition, Edinburgh, 1832). The earliest forms of the name, as found in those charters, are as follows, with their respective dates (and page numbers, which refer to the Maitland Club Edition): • "Forineisun" (1165–73), on page 6, • "Ferineisun" (1177–99), on page 12, and • "Forineisim" (1208–18), occurring twice on page 17. In each of those occurrences, the subject matter is the same: the skins of hinds taken either in ("in"), within ("infra"), or outside ("extra") of Forineisun. Barrow explains that the word that our printed edition transcribes as "Forineisun" should correctly have been read "Formeisun", derived from the Old French "fermeyson", a word which passed into English as "fermison", and which meant "the close season for stags and time for hunting hinds". The charters would then be referring to the skins of hinds that were taken either in or out of that season. This French-derived legal term was later misunderstood to be a place-name, and came to be associated with the particular area that still bears it. Barrow explains that the misunderstanding of the word developed early: a document of 1504 already refers to a "village of Ferrenes" in the parish of Paisley. See Barrow's book, already cited, for further details. The relevant passage is in chapter 15, "The Earliest Stewarts and their Lands".