Secret Glasgow

James Yule revealed some of Glasgow’s hidden gems when he spoke to fellow Kilrymont Rotarians.
James based his talk on Stephen Millar’s book Secret Glasgow, which highlights 150 less well-known and unusual places on interest in the city.
Fossil Grove in Victoria Park is where 10 fossilised trees from the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago were exposed in an excavation in 1887.
Another fossil wonder is the Bearsden Shark. It is the only complete shark fossil in the world and the one metre long exhibit is now housed in a museum at Glasgow University.
A Buffalo Bill statue can be found in the east end of the city. It is in tribute to showman Col. William F. Cody’s Wild West horse shows which performed in Dennistoun in 1891 and drew crowds said to number half a million. Cody brought over from America 200 horses and around 100 Sioux Indians for the extravaganza.
Other secrets included the Suffragette Oak in Kelvingrove Park, the Govan Stones Project in the Govan Old Parish Churchyard, Holocaust heroine Jane Haining at Queen’s Park Govanhill Church and the Govan Police Cells where Nazi Rudolph Hess was locked up after landing in Scotland on an alleged peace mission in 1944.
James, a former Glasgow policeman, said he, too, had locked up a few offenders in the cells.
James also gave a humorous account of the Stone of Destiny to be found in the Arlington Bar in Woodlands Road, Glasgow.
Four students took the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey in 1950.
The Stone was later recovered from Arbroath Abbey but a replica had been made. Was the original returned to London or is it in a Glasgow pub?
James ended his city tour in the Springburn Works of the North British Locomotive Company where at one time one quarter of the world’s locomotives were made and the engineering works employed 18,000 people.
It was a trip down memory lane for James, a native of Glasgow, and several other Rotary members with links to the city.

Irene Walker introduced James and Jim Allison proposed a vote of thanks for an entertaining and well-researched look at Glasgow’s hidden treasures.