Students dig up grounds of Glasgow Garden Festival
Staff and students from the archaeology department will be on site all week looking for interesting finds from the festival 34 years ago.
A team from the University of Glasgow is carrying out a unique archaeological investigation of the site of the Glasgow Garden Festival.
The event took place in 1988 and most locations across the city where it took place have since been redeveloped.
However, Festival Park on Govan Road remains unchanged and is where the work will take place.
Dr Kenny Brophy, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, at the School of Humanities, said: “The place we will be surveying hosted some features many visitors will remember.
"These include a miniature railway line, Bathhouse, a Highland-themed restaurant, and artworks such as scarecrows and The Ancient Forester."
The 1988 Garden Festival marked the start of the biggest change in the way Glasgow was seen - and how it saw itself - since the industrial revolution made it the ‘Second City of the Empire’.
A huge civic and commercial effort, the 1988 Festival attracted 4.3 million visitors and transformed a 120-acre site on the south bank of the urban Clyde for 152 days that summer and led the way to the city’s cultural reinvention.
Kenny added: “We want to see what remains, 34 years on, of that huge spectacle - what can be detected of the attractions and the people that visited them, and did visitors leave anything behind?
"It is also a great opportunity to show that archaeological techniques can help to shed light on our contemporary world, and not just the ancient past.
“We want to encourage everyone to come and see us at work on Saturday 28 May between 10am and 3pm.
"We also hope that members of the general public can bring along their memories and photographs of the Festival.”
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