Poets paradise on our doorstep
Mine of information
The return of Spring to the Paisley countryside was poet Robert Tannahill’s favourite time of the year.
Our town’s weaver bard immortalised the season of rebirth with time-honoured lines which still gladden the hearts of generations of Buddies at home and abroad.
Favourite verses include: ‘Gloomy winter’s now awa’, saft the westlan’ breezes blaw. ’Mang the birks (birches) o’ Stanely shaw, (wood) the mavis (thrush) sings fu’ cheerie, O. Sweet the crawflower’s (bluebell) early bell decks Gleniffer’s dewy dell, blooming like thy bonnie sel,’ my young, my artless dearie, O.’
These poignant words fill with tears the eyes of Paisley exiles across the world, especially older Buddies, who remember nostalgically their courting days at beauty spots like Foxbar and Durrockstock Dams, the Dusky Glen, Newton Woods, Bonnie Wee Well and High Dippings on the Brandy Burn.
I count myself lucky to have known Tannahill’s countryside before the advent of urbanisation, mechanisation
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. and technology.
My evergreen memories include laverocks (skylarks) singing over the Newton Woods, whaups (curlews) trilling hauntingly on Sergeantlaw Moor, peewits (lapwings) wailing wistfully on the Leitchland marshes and gowks (cuckoos) calling duosyllabically from Bardrain and Foxbar Woods.
These were the days when – before the invasion of monstrous tractors and agricultural chemicals – Paisley’s farming community lived close to the land, building oat stooks (sheaves) on harvested fields, erecting hayricks in stackyards, scything meadow grass, thinning neeps (turnips) and planting and picking potatoes by hand, forking manure from horse-drawn carts and cultivating fields with horse-drawn ploughs, harrows and rollers.
Often these idyllic scenes were enacted against the magnificent backdrop of Stanely Castle standing in the waters of Stanely Dam. Built around 1450 by the Maxwell family, the venerable stronghold was later owned by the Rosses and Boyles of Hawkhead.
Its roof was removed in 1714 and the castle surrounded by water around 1837 when Stanely Dam was constructed to supply fresh drinking water for Paisley’s citizens.
Tannahill’s ‘auld castle’s turrets’ are no longer ‘covered wi’ snaw’ and the wind ‘blaws’ less ‘keenly oe’r the braes sun crosses the celestial equator into the northern hemisphere.
Now we look forward to nature’s Springtime sights and sounds which beguiled Robert Tannahill and made our beloved Braes a poets paradise.