New highways are planned to converge on Cathcart in the 'seventies. Let us hope that these changes will not interfere with our two lovely parks, the Linn and the King's Park. Whatever the season, the tree-lined avenues and wooded paths bring pleasure and peace - or in the open spaces children have somewhere to play without the warning notices to "Keep Off The Grass".
In the Linn the waterfall provides one of the attractions; another is the Nature Trail, the first of its kind in Scotland and introduced here in 1965. It has proved extremely popular with education authorities and youth organisations within the city. Trees, one hundred-years-old and more can be studied, also shrubs, flowers and insects.
The first children's zoo was opened in 1967 with all the domestic type of animals to delight the young. An aViary is also included. Mr Arthur Oldham, the very progressive Director of Parks, is to be commended on his ambitious schemes; praise, too, to the employees of the Parks Dept.
The Linn Park was acquired by the Corporation in 1919, and was opened to the public two years later. The estate, once part of the land of Hagtonhill, belonged to Sir John Stirling Maxwell of Pollok, and to Mr Gordon or Aikenhead, while the Mansion House area was owned by the Hendersons of the shipping line. The lower part with the entrance in Greenock Avenue was opened in 1927, the Castle and policies being the property Of the Earl Cathcart.
Equally beautiful, although much smaller, is the King's Park, formerly the home of Gordon of Aikenhead, The first mansion of Aikenhead was a small thatched dwelling, and an ancient charter informs us that the lands of Aikenhead were confirmed by Robert II to John de Maxwell, Knight, and his wife Isabella de Lyndesay, the King's grand-daughter, in 1373. The Maxwells remained at Aikenhead until 1611 when the estate was sold to the Hamiltons, a branch of the ducal House of Hamilton, whose name appears frequently as the owners of estates in the 17th and 18th Centuries.
In 1808 John Gordon became the owner. The Gordons were a noted Glasgow merchant family, and it is from them that Gordon Street in the city gets its name. His grandson, Henry Erskine Gordon, was the largest heritor of this parish and also the patron. There were five daughters, several of whom regularly were seen on horseback in Cathcart before the first world war. The ladies left the neighbourhood, and nothing more in known of them; but the locals remember that the horses were handed over to Weir's "Terriers" on the outbreak of war.
The King's Park was gifted to Glasgow Corporation by Sir John A. McTaggart in 1930.
BOGTON HOUSE
This fine old mansion, over two hundred years old was situated in Clarkston Road opposite Muirend Road. Few will remember it as it was demolished in 1906, but Bogton Farm (on which a supermarket is now built) survived much longer.
The lands of Bogtoun originally belonged to the Blairs of Blair, then to Lord Cathcart who sold it back to the Blairs of that ilk. In 1663 the Hamiltons of Aikenhead became the owners, and the estate was eventually acquired by Mr Gordon.
BOGTOUN CASTLE
This was erected about 1580 but nothing now remains of it.
In this parish were three castles - Cathcart, Bogton, and Lee at Williamwood.