Entering the woods I notice more types of trees, flowers and birdsong than I can name*. The sound of the road does not go away, it cannot be mistaken for wind or rushing water, but it fades a little and offers a not unpleasant reminder that this place exists within a city, within a neighbourhood I admit I was only familiar with because of its proximity to ‘the big Asda’.
It would be easy to lose your sense of direction were it not for the pink high rises that loom over the tallest trees on one side of the woods, and the railway line running alongside the other. There is barely anyone else around and it’s a relief after the crowds of Victoria Road on a sunny day, along with the fact that here the paths are not made of tarmac, that there are none of the neat lawns found in the parks I have spent much of the most recent lockdown circling. It’s nice to be alone in the woods but immediately I think of all the people who also didn’t know about this place, who I’d like to show it to.
This is Malls Mire, a ‘community woodland’, and it can be found in the shadow of the Polmadie recycling centre on Glasgow’s Southside, at the very east end of Allison Street, past numerous car washes, the artificial grass store and the defunct tartan carpet warehouse.
*But perhaps, as Barry Lopez writes in Crossing Ground, it is more important to know the relations between things than the names of things.
A map and piece of site writing about Malls Mire woodland in Toryglen for a collaborative project curated by Mara Marxt, entitled ‘Keystone Speaker, Victory Women’. The book is now held in the Glasgow Women’s Library Collection.