WAY Life returned to Paisley’s paradise after town’s factories closed down
WE REVISIT DEREK PARKER’S RAMBLES THROUGH RENFREWSHIRE
Up until about 300 years ago what is now Paisley town centre was a pastoral paradise.
The medieval abbey towered in architectural splendour above green meadows and the medieval monks’ slab-studded graveyard.
Its weathered walls were mirrored in the silvery shallows of the River Cart where otters swam below the Hammills waterfall, salmon leaped, kingfishers plunged into pools to seize minnows and long-legged herons speared trout and frogs among the reeds.
Before Celtic evangelist St Mirin introduced Christianity during the seventh century, the rural realm was Paisley’s pagan citadel.
Cartha – after whom Cartha Crescent in Hunterhill is named – was goddess of the Cart. Iron Age Druid priests worshipped in a sacred oak grove beside a purling stream where St Mirin later built his wattle-and-mud shrine centuries later.
The oak grove and stream are commemorated in the names, Espedair
Derek Parker knew many of Paisley’s secrets – the grimy and the good.
He wandered every corner in search of the clues that would unlock Renfrewshire’s rich history.
These tales were shared with readers in his hugely popular Parker’s Way column.
We’ve opened our vault to handpick our favourites for you.
Street and Espedair Burn.
In the ancient British language, the word, Espedair, derives from ‘esk’ meaning ‘river’ and ‘duir’ meaning oak.
For centuries the pastoral paradise was a divine domain. The abbey’s fragrant orchards and Hunterhill’s leafy forest were rustic havens for birds, butterflies, flowers and wild animals.
But, with the advent of the 18th century Industrial Revolution, fields and forests gave way to houses, factories, foundries, mills, chemical works, distilleries, sawmills, shipyards, quarries and smoke-belching chimneys. Paradise was lost.
Nature’s green mantle was blackened with buildings. The rippling river was poisoned with industrial effluent. The life-inspiring spirit of Mother Cartha was hounded from her Espedair Eden by death and destruction – along with her children, the otters, salmon, kingfishers and herons.
The sacred landscape was profaned with looming chimneys and factories symbolising the expulsion from their rural haunts of the nature spirits of the countryside.
Then a miracle of rebirth took place. As Paisley’s factories folded financially – and legislation was introduced to protect waterways and wildlife from pollution – life returned to a cleaner river.
Cartha came home to an awakened river with her lost children.
Visit the Hamills waterfall or Hawkhead Bridge and you may see them – reborn spirits incarnated in colourful kingfishers, long-legged herons, leaping salmon, swimming otters and other wild creatures at home in the Cart.
In the resurrected river that flows through our town, a Paisley paradise has been regained.