Park turned over to producing food

Following weeks of wrangling, work to plough up part of King’s Park began 100 years ago this week.

Despite opposition from some prominent citizens, town councillors twice voted in favour of the move to cultivate around 20 acres of the park, most of which was the flat area near the main gate. It had been requested by the Government as part of national efforts to improve food production.

According to the Observer, two ploughs were used and work“proceeded rapidly”. The turnover of the ground at the“new portion”of the park, opposite the King’s Knot, in Dumbarton Road, was completed a few days earlier.

This four-and-a-half-acre section was added to the park between 10 and 12 years earlier and had proved a “popular place for a stroll and a seat”.

The Observer added: “No-one raised any protest when it was proposed that it should be ploughed, opposition being confined to the flat portion of the park”.

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Mr and Mrs Lowden, 20 Barnton Street, Stirling, received word their son Joseph, a private in the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, had been badly wounded in recent fighting.

He suffered injuries caused by shrapnel in an action in which two other members of his company were killed. The 22-year-old joined the Army 18 months earlier and had been at the Front for a year. Pte Lowden was a hairdresser to trade and worked with Mr JT Dale, Friars Street, Stirling, and Mr Walls, Bridge of Allan.

*** Meanwhile, on the homefront, a fatal accident occurred on Caledonia Railway track, 40 yards south of the bridge over the Forth at Stirling. Assistant blacksmith John Adams, who worked for North British Railway company and lived at Braehead, Whins of Milton, was crossing the line with a message for another worker when he failed to notice the approach of a north-bound train. The 23-year-old was struck and killed instantly.