Horticultural Strathbungo

The villages of Strathbungo and Crossmyloof have a long reputation for their horticultural endeavours. Hugh MacDonald wrote in his “Rambles round Glasgow” (1854) :

“A considerable number of the humble edifices, however, have garden-plots attached to them for the cultivation of kitchen vegetables; and it is well known that both here [Crossmyloof] and at Strathbungo many of the handloom weavers are celebrated growers of tulips, pansies, dahlias, and other floricultural favourites. Florist clubs, also, exist among them, which meet regularly for the examination of choice flowers, and for discussing the best means of rearing them to perfection. We have had the pleasure, at various periods, of conversing with several of these bloom worshippers—for such, in truth, they are—and we must admit that we were fairly astounded at the multifarious charms which they could discover and point out in what seemed to our obtuse visual organs a simple tulip or pansy. We could not help, indeed, comparing ourselves, when in their company, to Wordsworth’s “Peter Bell,” of whom it was said,—

” A primrose by the river’s brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.”

What a different affair was a primrose or a pansy to our Crossmyloof friends! It was indeed “a great deal more” than it seemed to the uninitiated. There are some sharpsighted people who are said to see farther into a millstone than their neighbours. For the truth of the saying we shall not venture to vouch; but most assuredly, for seeing into the mysteries of a tulip or a dahlia, we shall back a Crossmyloof or Strabungo weaver against the united amateurs of Scotland.

After all, however, there is something very creditable to such individuals in their enthusiastic love of flowers. We know not, indeed, how a working man could spend his leisure hours more harmlessly or pleasantly, than in the cultivation of a little flower-plot. In towns such a privilege is beyond the reach of the operative ; but in suburban situations and rural villages, it is exceedingly gratifying to witness the manifestations of such a taste.”

Alexander Scott, speaking to the Glasgow Archaeological Society in 1884 , again made reference to the tradition, including “…William Neilson (aged 81), the last survivor resident in the village of the very old inhabitants of Strathbungo, and who in his earlier years was a noted local floriculturist.”

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