Trails

Pollokshields Heritage has produced three walking trails which explore the villas of Pollokshields, the tenements of Pollokshields and the wider history of the Stirling Maxwell family and their impact on the area.

The first two Trail leaflets offer walks starting from either Maxwell Park or Pollokshields West railway stations. The walks are themed so the first leaflet - which covers the west of the suburb - is subtitled The Villas of Pollokshields and the second leaflet - which covers the east of the suburb - is subtitled The Tenements of Pollokshields. The walks highlight key buildings, features, details and notable former residents. The leaflets will guide people through Pollokshields’ leafy Avenues and handsome tenemental streets.

The third leaflet is a unique guide to the story of Pollokshields – Glasgow’s Garden Suburb. It celebrates the Stirling Maxwell family - the landowners who had the vision for a grand garden suburb to the south of the city centre and then saw it through three generations of the family; the master planners the family employed to draw up their vision; the developers who invested in the suburb and the architects whose designs they commissioned; those who then built the buildings; and on into the craftsmen and artisans who forged the details that still delight us.

The leaflets were officially launched on Sunday 3 March 2013 at an event held in the Pollokshields Burgh Hall.

Architecture and Innovation in East Pollokshields

Join Sam Ellis of Pollokshields Heritage to explore East Pollokshields via this digital audio walking tour. He’ll explore how architecture and community have become intertwined in this vibrant and creative area. With its gridded streets lined with handsome tenements, terraces, shops and public buildings East Pollokshields was specifically developed as an upmarket tenemental suburb and designed to appeal to families keen to escape the overcrowded city centre. Taking us through the heart of this vibrant community, the tour will start at Maxwell Park Station and highlights include three of the finest art nouveau tenements in Glasgow, an exuberant Edwardian Baroque Carnegie Library, Greek Thomson’s earliest surviving villa, a hidden gem of the Glasgow style, the best wally tiles in Glasgow, various churches and mosques, and Tramway’s rich history. The tour will also include notable tenements by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, HE Clifford and Burnet Boston and Carruthers. The walk will conclude at Tramway and the Hidden Gardens.

Pollokshields - Our Dear Green Suburb

Join Sam Ellis, of Pollokshields Heritage, for a digital audio tour of Pollokshields, the original, the biggest and the best-preserved planned garden suburb in the UK. Our tour will focus on the leafy avenues of West Pollokshields where we will explore some of the finest Victorian architecture in the city and learn more about how and why these impressive homes were built and what the original vision was for their future. We’ll learn more about who commissioned them, designed and built them and how their intricate details and impressive materials contribute to Pollokshields’s unique aesthetic.