Skulferatu #45 - The Drying Green, Glasgow Green, Glasgow

 

As part of a job I once had, I was required every so often to work in a building very close to Glasgow Green.  At lunchtimes, or anytime I could sneak off, I would go for a wander around the Green, often in the drizzle or rain when I would seem to have the whole park to myself.

 

The McLennan Arch at the Saltmarket entrance to Glasgow Green

 

Today, I walked through the park in bright sunshine and through crowds of sunbathers to an area, opposite the building that use to house Templeton’s Carpet Factory.  I had always assumed that the 36 cast iron clothes poles here were an artwork, a sculpture that was a social commentary on the lives of the women of Glasgow, but in actual fact they are real clothes poles and used to be hung with washing lines.  The area in which they stand is known as the Drying Green, which was, as the name suggests, where laundry could be hung out to dry.

 

The Drying Green – opposite the Templeton Building

 

Glasgow Green itself was gifted to the people of Glasgow by Bishop William Turnbull in the 1450s and one of the many ways it was used by the locals was to wash their clothing in the Clyde and then hang it out to dry on the Green. 

 

The Drying Green I visited today was in use up until 1977.  There were several wash houses, or steamies, nearby in which the women of Glasgow could wash their laundry before hanging it out to dry.  The people of Glasgow still retain the right to dry their laundry here.

 

The Drying Green

 

Clothes poles at the Drying Green

 

Drying Green clothes poles

 

In 2016 the clothes poles did become an artwork when the artist Penny Anderson incorporated them into her installation ‘Words of Washerwoman’.  The work consisted of 28 white muslin sheets hanging on newly strung washing lines.  Each of the sheets had imagined and real testimonies from witnesses to happenings on the Green through the many years in which the women of Glasgow used the area to wash and dry their laundry.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on today’s walk in the cracked bark of a tree standing next to the Drying Green.

 

Skulferatu #45

 

Skulferatu #45 in cracked bark of tree by the Drying Green

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #45

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.850467

Longitude -4.235520

 

I used the following sources for information on the Drying Green –

 

Glasgow Green Heritage Trail

Glasgow City Council

PDF file available from –

Glasgow City Council - (glasgow.gov.uk)

 

The Peoples History of Glasgow

By John K McDowall

1899

 

The Herald – 27 August 2016

Washing Line Art on Glasgow Green

By Jan Patience