The Inner Circle: The 4 Central Perches

The inner circle refers not to Glasgow toy-train underground but to that series of perches from inside the city limits. I have already made efforts to extol the virtues of the perch for the contemplative human animal, and have noted a few of the outer ones in either this or my other cycling meds. blog. Naturally, the outer perches render a certain remoteness to one's being which is in itself a vital influence. Yet, the inner ones can do this to. I have often skipped up to Ruchill Flagpole from the canal knowing that noone will be up there. The same could be said for the three other inner perches of Queen's Park Flagpole, the Central Necropolis, or indeed, the prow on Bellahouston Park's hill.

Amongst these four compass points, one can garner a panoptic view of the city, without necessarily being in it. It is an experience that everyone needs to do at least once in their lives. Seeing this from different angles, in different lights, from skewed perspectives, is all in the canon of understanding 'Understanding'. 

Seeing is everything, and these perches, whether inner or outer, can helps us get there...



1. Bellahouston Park Hill.

What an absolutely amazing aspect south-west and west from the prow on the west side of Bellahouston hill. You can see the inimitable humps of Neilston Pad, Duncarnock Craigie, the Fereneze hills above Barrhead, Walls Hill Fort behind Johnstone, and then, turning clockwise, the lumps and bumps of the Inverclyde Hills (Laird's Seat, Mistylaw et al.). If we turn a little more clockwise, staring more or less due west, we can see the wonderfully ungainly Barscube Hill (in the third photo just to the left of the two towers, in the distance).