Unearthing of Glorious Gardens Secrets Begins

New discoveries and interesting pasts are being uncovered as the Glorious Gardens project moves into a new and exciting phase!

The desk based research, archives, digital recording and field work workshops have come to an end for the present time and volunteers are being assigned properties to start investigating through desk based research.

As many of the volunteers learned in the various workshops that we ran, the desk based research is vital in informing the work prior to going out on the ground! This work begins with looking at the assigned property on any available maps - this allows you to see at a glance whether the site has changed much over time, usually over a couple of centuries anyway. Many of the maps are available via the National Library of Scotland website while others might be found in local libraries or archives.

A more detailed examination and comparison will inform you about the nature of these changes and why they may have occurred. Evidence captured from looking at maps can be complimented by examining other sources such as The Statistical Accounts of Scotland or perhaps local accounts of the area including diaries written by travellers or any number of other sources that might be located during a search. Lanark Library and other local archives will hold a number of useful texts and documents and when investigating estates in Lanarkshire, the Mitchell Library in Glasgow is worth getting in touch with too.

I think we are all looking forward to the unearthing of forgotten information and ultimately revealing the past. When the desk based work is near completion the volunteers will move outside to assess what remains of these once Glorious Lanarkshire Gardens ... and we can only guess what treasures we might unearth when we get to this stage.

- Lorna Innes, Project Officer, Glorious Gardens