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Helen Rose Outdoor Diary: Busby to Eaglesham

January 2026

This blog is about a walk from Busby to Eaglesham with the Glasgow Health Culture Rambling Club and led by Robin who knows the area well. Busby and Eaglesham are two villages located in the Great Glasgow Urban area to the east, although, they don’t fall within the Glasgow Council area. Busby is known for its lovely atmosphere, Busby Glen with its waterfall, and strong community feel, evolved from a textile industry hub to a pleasant residential area with good local amenities and access to nature.  It was a clear cold winter’s day and we travelled by train from the centre of Glasgow to Busby.

Busby Mill Works

Busby has a hidden past as a busy industrial village, which grew as a result of the textile industry. From the late 18th century it flourished, with two cotton mills and a printworks providing employment, and quickly developed as a centre for industry and innovation. The population grew quickly and with that came all the trappings of daily life, including shops, schools, churches and recreational facilities. It has a long history worth reading about on the Library website .The present Busby Hotel building was the Mill Works. Not many of the 18^th century mill workers cottages remain.

White Cart River

We crossed over the White Cart River. The White Cart Water (often called “White Cart river”) is a significant tributary  flowing through Glasgow’s south side, notably through Pollok Country Park known for its trout fishing and connection to the larger River Cart system which joins the River Clyde. It’s an urban river featuring brown trout, sea trout, salmon runs, historic features like old dye works remnants, and popular spots for walks and angling in areas like Linn Park.

Eaglesham

The walk continued through urban countryside to the lovely village of Eaglesham. Eaglesham is in East Renfrewshire which was declared Scotland’s first Conservation Village in the 1960s. Up to the mid-18th century, Eaglesham was mainly a collection of crofts and farms until Alexander Montgomerie, the 10th Earl of Eglinton, had the settlement redeveloped as a new planned village. At the centre of the village stands a long green, known as the Orry. A cotton mill once stood here and at its peak employed 200 people.

The Eaglesham Heritage Trail explains the history of the village from the 11th century to now.  Places of interest include St Bridget’s Church, Polnoon Lodge and Deil’s Wood. It certainly has a village atmosphere with a village green and the quaintly named Polnoon Street. Polnoon” likely refers to Polnoon Castle near Eaglesham,  with the name potentially stemming from the old Scots word “poinding” (ransom, referencing the castle’s builder Sir John de Montgomerie’s famous act) or “Pol,” meaning a river pool, though its exact origin is debated and maps show varied spellings like “Pounuyn” or “Punoon”

The meaning of Eaglesham is a hybrid name, composed of the Brittonic element *egles (ultimately from Latin ecclesia) and the Old English element ham; the meaning is “church estate

Eaglesham Churches

St Bridget’s was built in 1858 to provide a local place of worship for Catholic villagers, many of whom had settled as refugees from the Irish potato famine. Land provided by 13th Earl of Eglinton behind ‘Mayfield’ a house in Polnoon Street, now Chapel House. The interior is enhanced by Californian redwood beams and a large canvas of the ‘Deposition of Christ from the Cross’ by de Surne. The church interior was refurbished in the 1980s.

Eaglesham has a strong historical connection to the Covenanters, who were staunch Protestant Presbyterians that resisted King Charles I’s attempts to impose Episcopalian church governance in the 17th century. It is Eaglesham Parish Church.

The Eaglesham Parish Church grounds contain a notable memorial to two Covenanter martyrs. The sacred sanctuary is also the burial place of Covenanters Gabriel Thomson and Robert Lockhart, who were shot and killed on the bleak, windswept moors, a few miles away, because of their religious beliefs. According to the inscription on their elegant tombstone, standing majestically in the shadow of the lime-washed kirk’s soaring clock steeple and beside a graceful yew tree, the symbol of eternal life and immortality, the pair ‘were killed for owning the Covenanted testimony by a party of Highlandmen under the command of Ardencaple, 1st May, 1685.’ The epitaph continues, ‘These men did search through moorland moss to find out all that had no pass. These faithful witnesses were found and murdered upon the ground. Their bodies in this grave do lie. Their blood for vengeance yet doth cry. This may a standing witness be, for Presbytery gainst Prelacy.’ Above the inspirational inscription are the chiselled words: ‘Psalm CXII & VI ‘The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.’ Gabriel Thomson and Robert Lockhart are two of Scotland’s less well-known Covenanting martyrs. But they will forever belong to the Great Cloud of Witnesses who shed their blood in pursuit of what the poet, William Cowper, described as Man’s noblest destiny: ‘Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, to walk with God, to be divinely free, to soar and to anticipate the skies.’ In the hallowed surroundings of the village churchyard, we remember and revere the valiant Eaglesham martyrs who were faithful unto death and won the martyr’s crown.

A lot of history on this walk but fascinating.

Many thanks to Robin for planning and leading the walk.

Coming attractions; Drumchapel Way and Cumbernauld

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