By: David McVey
The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) owns and preserves many tracts of Scottish countryside, both large and small. Some of these properties are spectacular mountain landscapes – in Glencoe, Kintail or Galloway, say – while others are smaller parcels of land close to, or even in, our great cities. One of these is Greenbank Garden in Glasgow’s Southside, near the district of Clarkston.
Now a cherished green space for the city, Greenbank’s surroundings were once entirely rural. Greenbank House was built in the 1760s by Robert Allason, a merchant from a local farming dynasty. Records show that the 16-room house was complete by 1772, the walled garden to the south dates from the same time. It’s now the feature of the site for visitors but was originally intended purely for fruit trees. A wider estate of farms and woodland enfolded Greenbank deeply in the countryside.
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