King's Park
King's Park (incorporating the former golf course covers an area of 97.5 acres) is well known for its high profile horticultural displays, particularly those in the walled garden.
Where is it?
What can I do there?
The park has a wide variety of facilities to suit all age groups.
- Two children's play-areas.
- The park has many park seats and picnic tables.
- Orienteering course
- There are many fine specimens of trees such as lime, chestnut, oak and beech, many of which are over 100 years old.
- The park is laid out with extensive rhododendron shrub planting, which provides peaceful woodland walks, and expanses of open grasslands.
- On the south side of the park the walled garden provides a quite peaceful corner of the park. A pond which includes a waterfall provides a relaxing addition to the Walled Garden.
- A wooden pergola positioned along the central paths has a variety of climbing plants entwined up it, and colourful hanging baskets of seasonal bedding plants. The pergola is adorned with wooden carvings of "The bird, the bell, the tree and the fish", which are depicted within the Crest of The City of Glasgow Coat of Arms.
- Adjacent to the walled garden is a formal lawn area which includes a display of rose beds. The centre piece of this rose area is a large ornate obelisk sundial (1885). This was presented by the then 14th Earl of Home by whose ancestor it had been erected originally in 1885 in the formal gardens at Douglas Castle in Lanarkshire. This sundial is a copy of one constructed in Newbattle Abbey, Midlothian in 1635.
When is it open?
The park is open at all times.
History
68 acres of the King's Park was gifted to the city in 1930 by Sir John Mactaggart of the house builders Mactaggart and Mickel fame. Another 29.5 acres - being the former golf course - was gifted in 1934 by the Western Heritable Investment Co. Ltd.
Also gifted was Aikenhead House, situated in the centre of the park - the country residence of West India merchant John Gordon, after whom Gordon Street in the city centre is named. John Gordon's town house in the city centre was on the east side of Buchanan Street, now occupied by the Princes Square Shopping Mall.
The central block of Aikenhead House was designed by the architect David Hamilton and was built in 1806 for the West Indies merchant and prominent Glasgow Tory, John Gordon. The wings were also designed by Hamilton and were added in 1823.
The mansion was built on the site of a house originally built for James Hamilton, the first Earl of Abercorn. He was Provost of Glasgow at different times between 1614 and 1629 and died in 1633 having made his fortune as a merchant. In 1710 it became the home of Provost Hamilton's greatgrandson James, twice Rector of the University of Glasgow. His son, also James, succeeded him and later sold the estate to Colin Rae of Little Govan. John Gordon died in 1828 and was succeeded by his son.
The legendary song "The Dairy Maids Of Hundred-Acre Hill", from Old Glasgow Street Songs etc, 1850 is held at the Mitchell Library. The song is a tribute to the fine features and qualities of the dairymaids who live on Hundred Acre Hill, an area in modern King's Park which is described by Hugh MacDonald in his book Rambles Round Glasgow (1854).
In 1930 the estate was gifted to Glasgow Corporation and opened to the public as King's Park. During the Second World War the park served as the Anti-Aircraft Head Quarters of the Royal Artillery, with a hutted encampment in the grounds. In 1986 developers converted Aitkenhead House into fourteen individual flats, the first time that a building within a Glasgow park had been adapted to private housing.
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