{"id":641,"date":"2023-12-19T16:32:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T16:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/open-past.org\/incascot\/?post_type=projects&#038;p=124"},"modified":"2025-04-09T13:15:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T13:15:49","slug":"after-the-glasgow-garden-2","status":"publish","type":"casestudies","link":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/casestudies\/after-the-glasgow-garden-2\/","title":{"rendered":"After the Glasgow Garden Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>by Dr Kenny Brophy<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"720\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1280 \/ 720;\" width=\"1280\" autoplay controls loop muted src=\"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/38\/2023\/12\/Garden.mov\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Glasgow Garden Festival, in 1988, is widely agreed to be a seminal event in the modern re-invention of the city. As such, it holds a warm place in the hearts of the millions who visited this event between April and September 1988. However, there is surprisingly little historical writing about this Festival, hardly any of the 120-acre site that it sprawled across remains un-developed, and there is no information available on site or online for visitors or local community members.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/open-past.org\/incascot\/media\/sites\/6\/2023\/12\/Image-2-Sonic-Play-Trail-site-2023-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-126\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The archaeological footprint of the Sonic Play Trail during a 2023 walkover survey (K Brophy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowgardenfestival.org\/\">After the Garden Festival<\/a> is a project that is documenting, researching, and exploring the material legacy of this event. This combines archival research, interviews, crowdsourcing of images and information from the public, and archaeological fieldwork. The project began with the objective of finding information about where all the buildings, structures, artworks, infrastructure and vehicles that were part of the Festival are now. The removal of almost all temporary features from the festival site does not mean however that there is not also a material legacy on site too.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowgardenfestival.org\/digging-the-festival\/\">Archaeological fieldwork<\/a> can shed light on what survives <em>in situ<\/em>, with geophysical survey, topographic survey and excavations taking place in spring 2022 in Festival Park on the edge of Govan. In some cases, landscaping features such as a waterfall and lochan are still visible, but other elements are sub-surface if they survive at all. Our work showed that some aspects of the festival left no trace whatsoever while others remain buried. We were also able to recover material culture such as coins and ceramics that may relate to the event or the pre-industrial history of this site.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/open-past.org\/incascot\/media\/sites\/6\/2023\/12\/Image-1-AtGF-excavations-in-2022-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-125\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Excavations in 2022 in the lochan area (K Brophy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The archaeological component of the project demonstrates that even for events that happened within living memory, there are gaps in our knowledge. This is because in some cases the minutiae of what was happening on the ground was never recorded, such as changes in plan and improvised developments. However, people\u2019s memories quickly become unreliable, and in an analogue photography age, photos are relatively rare and tended to focus on prominent features (trains, rollercoasters, big sculptures) and not, say, IBM information points, park benches or bins. Archaeology is probably the best means we have to find tangible spatially situated evidence of Glasgow Garden Festival and developing a rounded narrative of the Festival and its legacy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An ongoing programme of field survey across the Festival site is further highlighting surviving elements of the Festival <em>in situ<\/em> today, from the footprints of the Sonic Play Trail, to screws and broken signage on a wall at Canting Quay. The combination of archaeological fieldwork with archival research, oral histories, and site walkovers will, it is hoped, enable the creation of resources and walking trails for visitors, contributing to and maintaining a revival of interest in this event and the role it has \u2013 and still plays \u2013 in the internal and external perception of Glasgow.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Authors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Gordon Barr, Kenny Brophy, Lex Lamb<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Acknowledgements<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>We would like to thank everyone who has contributed their time, memories, photos, and archive material to help the After the Garden Festival project. The fieldwork was funded by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glasgowheritage.org.uk\/\">Glasgow City Heritage Trust<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gla.ac.uk\/subjects\/archaeology\/\">University of Glasgow Archaeology Department<\/a>, and we are very grateful for everyone who has helped with our fieldwork, and researchers Rebecca Younger and Roy Johnson.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Dr Kenny Brophy The Glasgow Garden Festival, in 1988, is widely agreed to be a seminal event in the modern re-invention of the city. As such, it holds a warm place in the hearts of the millions who visited this event between April and September 1988. However, there is surprisingly little historical writing about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":126,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-641","casestudies","type-casestudies","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/casestudies\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/casestudies"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/casestudies"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/casestudies\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/casestudies\/641\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarf.scot\/incascot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}