Wandering: a kids’ beach, a Mugdock and a lost elephant

May 5, 2023, 4:42 am , by Richard Lutz

Richard Lutz goes all Town and Country as May pops out

What is it about beaches and children? Plant a kid on a remote strip of sand such as the secluded Port Carrick in South Ayrshire…..

Credit: John Mcfadzean/SUP

… and the laughter and riotous shouts ricochet off the shoreline louder than a cloud of oystercatchers chattering for a beachside meal.

Maybe it has something to do with a sense of total freedom; a parent telling a little daughter or son to run fast and splash away…but not too deep. Port Carrick, once a smuggling beach, appears and disappears with the estuary’s breath. It’s a small jog to the clifftop Culzean Castle. Those sounds of kids pepper the air.

Above the hidden beach, the warm(ish) weather means wild flowers are awakening. Here bluebells, red campion and greater stitchwort (or is it lesser stitchwort?) are opening up to the world:

The paths are bordered by wild garlic and suffused with its sharp fragrance. In the backdrop, ferns are starting to unfurl under the shadow of birch. Look back, up and out, over the Firth of Clyde, and the sea is framed by the yellow of wild gorse. Its scent is unmistakable- coconut sun cream oil. Don’t get too close though. It’s thorny. On the silver horizon the 1100 foot Ailsa Craig is capped by a passing cloud:

Back to the thrum of Glasgow and it’s blessed with loads of green spaces where spring enfolds you. Such as Pollok Park in the south of the city with its meandering White Cart Water:

Its 380 acres are home to two museums. One is The Burrell with its glass walls and open beamed halls.

It’s partially tucked in woods and rammed with an encyclopaedic range of ….well, stuff. From medieval stained glass to delicate Chinese porcelain to this ancient 4000 year old head from a dead mid east empire:

A short walk brings you to the park’s second museum, Pollok House.

It’s a grand old place packed with Spanish paintings including those by Goya, Murillo and El Greco. Its manicured 18thc gardens decorate the grounds. Its last owner, the gloriously named Sir John Maxwell Stirling-Maxwell (yes, that’s right…) saw the writing on the wall and allowed his family to place his handsome home into the hands of The National Trust. He is a local hero and Glasgow gallantly rose to the occasion in time honoured fashion and named a pub after him. Until recently, that is, when the ale house was shut, a victim of pandemic economics.

Just north of the city is Mugdock Park. I like the name: it could be a kind of swampy monster that Tolkien would have invented who gobbled up lost hobbits. Or the latest Star Wars movie, y’know …’Rebels of The Mugdock Nation’.

It’s actually a pleasant roll of hills and woods that takes in a bit of the long distance West Highland Path that stretches from the city to the foot of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain. Wide walking trails twist and turn through Mugdock’s quiet woods, pastures and riverbanks.

But what intrigues me most is the story of Mugdock’s old zoo. It housed 2000 animals: crocodiles, lions, monkeys, rare birds and reptiles. Today, this is all that remains, the damp ruins of Craig End House, its hollow wreck reclaimed by nature.

The zoo’s star was Charlie the elephant. He was faithful to his keeper Shaik Ibrahim.

Credit: Tony Lidington

So faithful that when his mahout went off to the the local pub, Charlie followed. But he got his five ton mass stuck in the bar’s front door before he even folded his trunk around a pint.

Firemen had to pry Charlie loose before he was returned to safer grounds. The zoo shut in 1956. Charlie went elsewhere. And happily now there’s a busy club nearby called Charlie’s Loft to remember the elephant’s lost order a half century ago.