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Post by Waverley on Jul 6, 2007 10:49:04 GMT 1
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2008 11:10:28 GMT 1
From "Glasgow Past And Present"
The covering of the Camlachie Burn, where it is open near the Barrowfield Toll, was again before the Court, the members having in the meantime made an inspection of the spot. The proceedings were advanced a stage. Truly a few short years have altered the features of this once sylvan locality. The Court, on the occasion of its visit, was accompanied by its decent old officer, William Crawford, and he informs us that in his young days, more than half-a-century ago, and before he went to fight for King George III. as a British seaman, the line of the burn from Carntyne down to the Green was entirely open, and fringed with fine ash trees, which afforded a pleasant walk, and shady retreat, to thousands of the East-cnders, who resorted there for pleasure, health, and recreation. It was a beautiful pellucid stream throughout all its devious way, from its source to its junction with the Molendinar near the foot of the Saltmarket. At the spot near the toll, where the inspection took place, there was a ford at which the horses going or returning between Glasgow and Rutherglen were watered ; and pure water it was in those times. The stream abounded with silver eels, and our informant remembers that when the North York and Cheshire regiments of Militia lay in Glasgow in 1798, it was one of their most pleasant occupations, in leisure moments, to promenade along its banks, and take these eels, many a goodly basket of which the soldiers brought to their quarters. The stream, where it is now visible (for it is mostly all covered in), is darker than black-beer, and the smell of it has nothing akin to the spicy odours of " Araby the blest." The last thing which the burn produced, that we are aware of, was an enormous quantity of pike—metal pikes we mean—which the patriots of Calton and Bridgeton threw into it in the Radical year. These men found that the task of upsetting the British constitution was not to be so easily effected as they had imagined, and when their houses were about to be searched by the military, they made a present of their armour to Camlachie Burn, and went to sleep with a clear conscience.
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