Glasgow Garden Festival

The Glasgow Garden Festival took place between April 28, 1988, and September 26, 1988, and was the third of five similar events which were held throughout the United Kingdom:

1984 Liverpool
1986 Stoke on Trent
1988 Glasgow
1990 Gateshead
1992 Ebbw Vale

Glasgow's proposal for the site was made in 1983, the same year in which Laing Homes Ltd had purchased the site for �2.5 million, and in November of that year the Scottish Development Agency (SDA) accepted the proposal and leased the site from Laing, and became the main funding body and organiser for the event.

Much of the event was located on a 100 acre site which had been created in the eastern part of Prince's Dock on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre (SECC). The north, centre, and south basins of the dock were infilled, and several thousand tons of top soil were dredged from the river, allowing the site to be landscaped with over 300,000 trees, bushes and garden plants to create six themed areas for the event:

science and technology
health and well-being
plants and food
landscape and scenery
water and maritime activities
recreation and sport

Two special feature areas were created: the High Street, which was decorated with outlines of Glasgow's best known spires and towers, containing more than twenty single storey shops, and Bell's Bridge, installed to provide access from the opposite bank of the river.

Five main rides were featured on the site: the Clydesdale Bank Tower at 240 feet (64 m), which also marked the bank's 150th anniversary; the Coca-Cola extreme roller coaster; the tramway rides along the river bank, featuring Glasgow Corporation Tramways tram No 22, built in 1922 and in active service until the end of 1960, and which covered nearly 4,000 miles during the festival;^[1] and the Festival railway, a narrow gauge train service which ran around the site. There was also the biggest teapot in the world, and a new footbridge, the first for 120 years since the 19th century, which connected the SECC car park with the festival site. This was Bell's Bridge, with a 124 metre span sponsored by Perth distillers Arthur Bell to the tune of �250,000, with an opening section in the centre to allow the passage of ships, the bridge being supported on piles driven into the riverbed.

Coca-Cola roller coaster
� Carol Walker

Catering was essential, and over the months, the visitors consumed more than a 100 tonnes of chips, 20 miles of hot-dogs, 350,000 hamburgers, 400,000 ice-creams, 130,000 doughnuts and 300,000 pints of beer.

The festival was popular and attracted large crowds with many people purchasing season tickets which allowed the holders to visit as often as they wished. The only thing which marred the five month success of the festival was an accident involving a mortar during the firework display on the closing night. Six people were seriously injured, and five others injured by hot metal from the explosion. A firework technician had to have his injured left leg amputated following the accident, and a woman's life was saved by her dentures, which surgeons said had stopped a metal fragment measuring almost five inches square from reaching her throat and killing her, after striking her in the mouth and knocking her off her feet.^[2] The location and timing of this incident, at the end of the event, meant that most of those present were unaware of what had happened, and only learned of the circumstances of the arrival of the emergency services later, when they saw or heard local news reports. The vast majority of the crowd was on the festival site, on the south bank, and only a relatively small number across the river on the north bank, near the Rotunda, were involved, or witnessed what happened.

More than four million visitors flocked to the site during its five months, and many of Glasgow�s citizens have admitted to visiting every single day for a "day out of this world" - the slogan of the festival. Glasgow council reports an estimated �100 million was injected into the local economy at the time, with a further �170 million being spent in the five years immediately after.

Later figures released for the event showed the total cost, less income from visitors, was about �7 million, and that that there were 4.3 million visitors - 40% more than targeted.

Taggart

The Garden Festival site featured in the Taggart episode "Root of Evil", first broadcast in September 1988, providing the setting when Taggart and Jardine investigate a series of brutal murders which appear to be revenge attacks on local loan sharks.

After the Festival

Glasgow Tower, Science Centre, IMAX theatre, plus development, 2007

Glasgow Tower, Science Centre,
IMAX theatre, plus development
� wfmillar

It had been hoped that the festival would result in the redevelopment of the area, but the site lay derelict until the IMAX thatre opened in October 2000, followed by the Glasgow Science Centre in June 2001, and the completion of the Glasgow Tower in the same year. These have been followed by new studios for Scottish Television, opened in June 2006, and the BBC's Pacific Quay studios which began operating during 2007.

Unfortunately, the new Glasgow Science Centre was obliged to close the day after it was opened, having applied for the wrong operating licence, and was unable to collect admission fees from visitors. The science centre is also an ongoing funding crisis. In 2004, one fifth of the staff were made redundant after a funding deal was agreed with the Scottish Executive, there were then claims in the press in June 2008 that a 40% cut in funding was being made, and in July 2008, 28 full-time jobs were to go as a direct consequence of cuts made in order to secure science centre's future.

Clydesdale Bank Tower
� Carol Walker

The Clydesdale Bank Tower was quickly sold off for �400,000 and was dismantled and re-erected in the Welsh seaside resort of Rhyl, North Wales, where it is now known as the Sky Tower.

Glasgow Tower
� Thomas Nugent

The �10 million Glasgow Tower has had to be closed on numerous occasions. Having been open for only 100 days in the twelve months following its completion and opening in October 2001, it had to be closed for almost 2½ years while engineers worked on a faulty bearing which was supposed to allow the tower to turn through 360 degrees. In January 2002, ten people were trapped in the glass-sided lifts for five hours after a cable snapped, marking the fifth time in six months it had been forced to close. The tower is 127 metres in height, with and observation deck at 105 metres, making it the tallest tower in Scotland at present (2009), and the second tallest free-standing structure after the chimney of Inverkip Power Station.

Clyde Arc repair
� Thomas Nugent

In 2006, a road bridge was constructed to carry traffic associated with Pacific Quay. The novel design crosses the river at an angle and is officially known as the Clyde Arc, but more affectionately referred to by Glaswegians as the Squinty Bridge. In January 2008, Clydeport Authority was obliged to close the new bridge following the failure of one of the 14 bridge support cables, after which another was found to contain a crack. It remained closed until June 28, 2008.

Festival Park

Waterfall 1988

The only surviving ground of the festival now lies within Festival Park, where the remains of the Highland river, lochan, and waterfall feature now lie. The waterfall is now dry, the lochan filled in, and the remaining Highland scenery blighted by two brightly coloured childrens' play areas. The lochan area also featured a building which represented a Highland distillery, complete with an area of peat bog with peat cutting taking place to fuel the distillery.