IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Montgomery Road, PAISLEY, PA3 4PY

A Image leads to the point from which this picture was taken. No entirely unobstructed view was possible, but the elevated viewpoint does at least make for easier comparison with the map. [See Image for a later (2018) view from within the playing field itself.] The road on the right is Arkleston Road, and the houses on the left are in the Gallowhill area. The three high flats on the left are shown at Image and linked images. The goalposts indicate the current use of the grassy space, but the area has an interesting history. The nearest part of it was formerly the site of two reservoirs, one centred on Image, and the other, immediately to the south-west of it, centred on Image They were not present when the first-edition OS map was surveyed in 1857, but they are on the second-edition map, revised in about 1895. They were in the area that appears in the foreground of this picture. Over to the right, on the near side of the road, was Arkleston Print Works, centred on Image (a rough indication of where the works stood in relation to this picture: from the further of the two goal posts, the site occupied by the works extended directly to the right, as far as to the main road). The site was originally occupied by Walter Drybrough & Company, a yarn dyeing and yarn printing business. However, that company would later be taken over by another firm: Kerr & Co, manufacturers and finishers, in Paisley, was taken over by the Ross Family, who carried on the work of cloth finishers. Their business expanded rapidly, and they moved to a site on Seedhill Road in 1888, where they had built a new and larger finishing works. In addition to finishing cloth, they began, in 1908, dyeing it. To that end, they took over the aforementioned works of Walter Drybrough and Co at Arkleston, and carried on their cloth dyeing at that site, as "Seedhill Yarn Dyeing and Yarn Printing Co, Arkleston Works, Paisley". The company continued with the other side of their business at the existing Seedhill Road works, as "Seedhill Finishing Company, Ltd, dyers, mercerisers, printers and finishers, Ralston St, Seedhill Road, Paisley". Just to the west of the reservoirs, the second-edition map shows two smaller and more irregular bodies of water, one at Image (just in front of the houses), the other at Image (now under some houses). Those pools are older than the reservoirs, as shown by their appearance on the first-edition OS map (surveyed in 1857). Their origin is not apparent from the OS maps alone. However, it turns out that they were once quarries. A useful description of this area can be found on pages 273-276 of an issue of "The Geological Magazine" (New Series, Decade VI, Vol IV, January to December 1917). The article in question is by Peter MacNair, FRSE, FGS, and has the unpromising title "The Horizon of the Type-Specimens of Dr Scouler's Dithyrocaris tricornis and D testudinea". However, the article contains a useful geological description of the area shown in the present picture, with an accompanying map which shows the two irregular pools mentioned above; on that map, they are labelled "Old Quarries", and are shown to lie within an area of Gallowhill Limestone. The article's most relevant section is as follows: "As has already been stated, no exposures of the Gallowhill Limestone can now be seen at any of the localities where it was formerly worked. But the position of two of the quarries south of Arkleston Print Works can still be seen. Another quarry appears to have been opened a little to the south of Gallowhill, opposite the Mote Hill. The positions of these quarries are indicated on the map, and they seem to have been somewhat extensively worked about the year 1835, when Scouler's fossils were found, the old Powder Magazine between Arkleston and South Arkleston having been built of it, as well as a large number of the dykes in the Gallowhill Policies. It was also used in some walls in the neighbourhood of the Paisley Barracks, where it can still be seen." The location of the long-gone Arkleston Print Works was given above. On the location of the "Mote Hill" mentioned here, see Image The unqualified "Arkleston" refers to Arkleston House (now gone), formerly West Arkleston: see Image and Image for its former site, and Image for more information on the area as a whole. The Image that was also mentioned in the quoted excerpt still stands. For "the old Powder Magazine" (no longer in existence), see Image; there was another quarry near that building: Image

See Image for a view in the opposite direction from about the same place. In the present picture, the building seen indistinctly in the left foreground is Montgomery Court (sheltered housing). Directly ahead, at the foot of the slope, but partly hidden by the intervening trees, is a Image

See Image for an earlier and more distant view. The point from which the present picture was taken was once the northern end of a reservoir. Not far ahead, on the right, was another reservoir. Directly ahead, extending back from a point about halfway between the photographer's position and the road in the background, were the Arkleston Print Works. The works extended from there to the line of the road. See the link in the first paragraph for more information about the works and the reservoirs. For the earlier history of the wider area, see Image

See Image for a view in the opposite direction from about the same spot. The path leads past, but not through, Image I interpret the path itself as following the line of a track that used to run past the western side of the house; see Image for further comments.

Arkleston House, now gone, was once known as West Arkleston. At the time of writing, North and South Arkleston survive as working farms, and East Arkleston as ruins: Image / Image / Image See Image for more on this area as a whole. Note the section of wall just to the right (east) of the path in the present picture. Image is just to the east, but the section of wall shown in the present picture is not part of the side-wall of the house itself. For one thing, this section of low wall has its top intact; it is clearly not a fragment of anything taller. But, more tellingly, it runs SSE—NNW (while the western wall of the house ran SSW—NNE). This wall has the appearance of the boundary of a garden, and that is probably what it was: the 1939 revision of the OS map shows a track heading in this direction, just west of the former site of the house, and this wall probably served to separate that track from the garden of the house. The line of the track itself survives as the woodland path shown in the present picture (and in Image / Image). Other low traces, no more than footings, survive nearby, crossing the line of the path in the area just behind the photographer.

The house, now gone, had earlier been known as West Arkleston. At the time of writing, North Arkleston and South Arkleston survive as working farms, and East Arkleston as ruins: Image / Image / Image Although Arkleston House is gone, some traces remains, such as the wall (a little to the west of the house) shown in Image (it probably separated the house's garden from a track that ran beside it). Other low footings are visible nearby. The site of the house itself is still evident, to an extent, as a clearing, the one in which the present picture was taken; the site has not yet become overgrown to the extent that it blends in with the surrounding woods.

Not far ahead is the corner of the road, as depicted on the OS map. The picture was taken from a Image The red car in the right background of that picture is at about the same place as the vehicles in the present picture. The large structure visible behind the tallest of the trees is part of Image (as seen by comparison with the far right of a picture of a Image).

The path is in an area of woodland that is bounded on the east by a Image, and on the west by the built-up Gallowhill area. A short Image from Arkleston Road meets up with this rougher track; see that item for further comments. The place shown in the present picture was once the location of West Arkleston, which was later called Arkleston House; see Image and Image for more on that topic, and Image for more on the area as a whole.

A Renfrewshire Council facility.

Road over M8