This might not look like much, but it's the remains of an Iron Age enclosure in Pollok Country Park in Glasgow. It consists of a 30 m diametre ditch (partly visible on the left) surrounding a raised central area (background right), with a causeway leading out of it (foreground right) to a paved road. Excavations suggest it dates from between 2,000 and 2,500 years ago and probably functioned as a defensive structure.
A mosaic portrait of the 18th Century Scottish poet Joanna Baillie made from Venetian Glass by the Murano Glass Company in the 1890s for the Joanna Baillie Monument, which is sited in front of Bothwell Parish Church, near where she was born.
Greenbank House in Clarkston, near Glasgow. Possibly designed by Allan Dreghorn, this house was built in 1764 for Robert Allason. Allason had started his working life as a baker's apprentice in the Gorbals, but when on to become one of the Glasgow Virginia merchants who made fortunes from trading tobacco and slaves.
Allason used this money to buy Flenders Farm, which his grandfather had worked as a tenant farmer, and used the land, and his wealth, to build Greenbank House. Allason's time at Greenbank was brief as his business suffered greatly in the American War of Independence and he had to give the house up when he was made insolvent in 1784.
A face-like Lectern style sundial in the garden of Greenbank House near Glasgow. This may be an original 16th century sundial, or it may be a later replica of an earlier design. Lectern sundials are one of the three types of ancient Scottish sundials. They can also be found in some parts of continental Europe, particularly the Netherlands, which was a major trading partner of Scotland at the time.
These might not look like much, but they're the oldest man-made things I''ve featured so far. They're cup and ring marks carved into rocks on the hills around Cochno on the outskirts of Glasgow. Dating from the Neolithic period between four and six thousand years ago, similar petroglyphs can be along the Celtic fringe of Europe. However, it's not known why they were made.
The remains of an Iron Age Crannog, dating from around 2,000 years ago, on the foreshore of the Clyde just below the Erskine Bridge, which was opened in 1971. Crannogs consisted of a round house constructed on a manmade island in lochs, marshes or intertidal zones. In this case, a circle.of wooden posts were sunk into the sand and the internal space was filled with rocks abd silt to create the base on which the house was then be built.
After a long history of whole families working in Great Britain coal mines, “The Mines and Collieries Act” in 1842 banned boys under 10, girls, and women from working below ground.
It took several years to fully set, but it did not stop women from working on the surface.
These women became known as “Pit Brow Lasses."
(🧵⬇️)
What is thought to be the remains of 2,000 year old Roman Ford across the Clyde at Dumbuck to the west of Glasgow. Before the Clyde was deepened in the late 1700s to let ships sail all the way up to Glasgow, it was possible to cross it at this point when the tide was low.
This morning looking across the Firth of Clyde to Dumbarton Rock. It's the remains of an extinct volcano dating from over 300 million years ago. The buildings you can see on it today are part of Dumbarton Castle whose history can be traced back at least 1,500 years, making it the oldest fortress in Scotland to still be in existence today.
The remains of Dumbuck Crannog on the foreshore of the Clyde near Dumbarton Castle.
Crannogs were man-made islands with a house on them which were connected to the shore by a causeway. The first crannogs appeared Scotland and Ireland around 2,500 years ago, but the Dumbuck Crannog is thought to date from around 2,000 years ago.
Despite its age, you can still make out the causeway leading up to Dumbuck Crannog (in the foreground) and its circular base (in the distance) made from rocks, earth and wooden posts, some of which are still visible.
The Henry Bell Monument in Helensburgh. Born in West Lothian in 1767, Bell became obsessed with the idea of using steam engines to power ships around 1800. While is early experiments were unsuccessful, he received enouragement from none other than Admiral Lord Nelson, who in 1803 told the Admiralty, "My Lords, if you do not adopt Mr Bell's scheme, other nations will, and in the end vex every vein of this empire. It will succeed ... and you should encourage Mr Bell.".
In 1808, Bell moved to Helensburgh and it was here he built his first successful steam-powered vessel, a paddlesteamer called Comet, in 1812 and used it to create Europe's first successful steam-powered passenger service running between Helensburgh, Glasgow and Greenock. In 1820, the Comet was shipwrecked near Oban, but was soon replaced by the PS Comet II.
In 1825, the Comet II sank after colliding with another ship, killing 62 of the 80 passengers. After this, Bell abandoned his interest in steam-powered nautical navigation and he died in Helensburgh just a few years later in 1830.
There’s an old joke in Scotland that the best Christmas songs are Songs of the Stone – about the recovery, on Christmas Day 1950, of Scotland’s Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey.
Let me share with you the story and some of these songs 🧵
Today I ported #wikipedia info on members of 18th century Scottish societies into #wikidata with a view to using SPARQL to visualise Enlightenment networks.
As ever, it could be expanded (e.g. Speculative Society), but for the moment I think this is quite a pleasing view, which can be clicked to see individuals' interests. https://w.wiki/8V6e