Botanic Gardens and Bingham Pond

Run time: 30:25
Distance covered: 3.29m (5.29km)
Soundtrack: David Tennant's podcast
Conditions: sunny, early autumnal 

Before I moved to the suburbs and became a boring dad, I used to have a flat in the west end of Glasgow. I still miss the old neighbourhood whenever I come back, particularly when I'm in one of my favourite spots, like the Botanic Gardens.

I already knocked off a big chunk of the west end parks on my run back in June. I covered Victoria a couple of weeks ago, and I'm saving Kelvingrove for the big finish, so that left just two west end parks. One I was very familiar with, and one which I had never visited before.

The latter was Bingham's Pond. Another park I must have driven by a hundred times without noticing. It's nestled between Great Western Road and Gartnavel General Hospital.

Having run so many parks on this project (96 as of today), I've noticed them falling into categories: e.g. Classic Victorian, Uninspiring 60s, Nature Reserve, Millennium Project, Pond Park. Bingham's is a good Pond Park - i.e. a simple loop around a large pond. A quick look online reveals that it is actually Victorian, dating from the 1880s. The pond itself used to be larger, with a boathouse at the eastern end, before that part of the pond was filled in and replaced with a hotel car park. It' still a nice space. There are benches and swans and it's probably a nice place for patients from the hospital to go for recuperation, if they're able to.

Leaving Bingham's Pond, I headed east along Great Western Road, one of the grandest thoroughfares in Glasgow, lined with beautiful villas and terraces. One day I'm going to write a psychological thriller about a house on Great Western Road. 

The Botanic Gardens is one of the jewels in the crown of Glasgow's green space, which is why it's one of the few city parks with its own website. The institution dates back to 1817, when the Royal Botanic Institute of Glasgow laid out ground at the western end of Sauchiehall Street, before moving to the current site by the Kelvin.

I loved visiting the Kibble Palace glasshouse as a kid. It was one of those places I thought I might have dreamed or imagined, and was pleasantly surprised to find exists when I visited again as an adult. Unlike the sadly dilapidated Victorian glasshouses in other parks like Springburn and Tollcross, this one is thankfully in great shape. In 2004, the whole thing was dismantled, shipped to Yorkshire for repair and painstakingly reassembled. 

There used to be a Botanic Gardens railway station, sadly no longer. The building burned down in 1970, and apparently the subterranean platforms are still visible, though I didn't spot them on the run.

There are some interesting loops around the grounds. I didn't try running through any of the glasshouses (I imagine it's frowned upon), but it made me realise it's been a couple of years since I visited. I won't leave it so long next time. 

After that, I headed back along Great Western Road to complete the run. 

This was one of those runs that feels like a struggle, and that your legs are barely moving, but on completion I found my pace wasn't too bad. After a year of exploration runs, it will be interesting to go for a simple flat run around a pond somewhere and see if my overall pace has improved any.