大象传媒

G43 1AT - Glasgow

Like many British country houses late in 1914, Pollok House was turned over by its owners, the Stirling Maxwell family, as an auxiliary hospital for use by convalescing soldiers. This helped to take pressure off acute care hospitals which had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of wounded coming from the fighting in France at that time. Most of the patients at Pollok House came from Stobhill Hospital in the north of the city. The Stirling Maxwells made way for the hospital by spending most of this time living at Barncluith House in Hamilton.

Pollok House also boasts an unusual war memorial on the south wall of its gardens. It's unusual in that it commemorates all fifty-eight men from the tenantry and staff of Nether Pollok Estate went to war - not just those who died. Two of those who did tragically lose their lives were Thomas and William Heron, both sons of James Heron, the head gardener.

Anne Stirling Maxwell, the only child of Sir John Stirling Maxwell, also did her bit for the war effort. As a young girl during the war years, Anne bred mice for use on submarines. The mice were used in much the same way that miners used canaries: if there was a build-up of carbon monoxide, the mice would show the effects first.

According to Pollok House Legend when Dame Anne signed Pollok House and its lands over to the City of Glasgow in 1966, she asked that mouse traps should not be put down in the House. Curiously, according to those work at Pollok House, there's remarkably little trouble from mice for a country house.

Image Copyright National Trust for Scotland

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