My wife and I had some spare time this week and made it to Pollock Country Park in Glasgow which also hosts the Burrell Collection, a world famous eclectic collection of various art works and treasures.
We started by going into the Burrell Collection first. Its housed in an amazing new building within the park which recently had a £66 Million upgrade - nice ! I've tried to visit the collection many times before but it was shut for a long time during the refurbishment - so this was a first for us.
Its a really interesting space inside. The artifacts were collected by Constance and William Burrell in the 19th and 20th century and then gifted to the people of Glasgow. Its a real mix of things, and the rooms in the gallery have been built up replicating the mix.
I loved the painting above and the story behind it - the abridged version is that the lady in the picture, Judith, from Germany, lived in a town besieged by barbarians. She woed the chief barbarian, and then cut his head of while he was drunk. The leaderless barbarians then lifted the siege and dispersed, leaving the city safely - epic girl power !!!!
The building had some really great spaces - like this seating area below, with a central piece of a giant garden vase from Hadrian's villa at Tivoli !
I really love mosaics, and the cockerel above looks fantastic. The way it was lit made it impossible for me to take a pic without a shadow - but I really like the outcome !
There was a lot more to see in the collection gallery, but I'll cover it in another post sometime. We had a nice time looking around it, then had tea and cake and then made it outside to go around the country park.
The park is quite large, and has a nice circular walk which we set out upon. The cool picture above was one of a set spaced around the park designed to bring some life to the place - 'paintings gone wild'.
Next stop was Pollock House, which is an ex-privately owned stately home now managed by either the National Trust for Scotland, or Historic Scotland - it was closed, but we have been before, so we just explored the outside instead.
I really did like the lions at the front of the house !
And the entrance at the back of the house is quite cool - I love the light with the round glass globe.
Just by the house is this beautiful bridge over the river, which was casting quite a nice reflection.
The bridge is quite old and was used for cart traffic back in the day - you can see the metal treads on the bridge which were designed to stop the carriage wheels wearing groves into the bridge surface - quite cool to see those !
From the House we made our way further around the circular walk. We spotted a number of odd wooden structures on the way, like the one above, and have no idea what they are for - answers on a postcard (or in the comment section) !
And just near the end of the walk we came across this forester's memorial of a number of newley planted trees - it may not yet be so fantastic to look at, but the story behind it is quite impressive (see below).
Its a memorial to all of the workers from the Commonwealth that came to work in and maintain Britain's forests during world war 2 ! This was also interesting for my wife as she works in forestry.
And then we ended back up where we started, at the gallery for the Burrell Collection. We loved the walk and seeing the collection (for which entry is free) - a great way to spend the day ! That wraps up my wednesday walk post for the week - I'm looking forward to seeing the others from around the world !
All the best from Scotland !
