Pollok Country Park

The starting point of the walk is the car park by Pollok House. Nearby is the Old Stable Courtyard, the remains of a 19th century farmstead, where owls, bats and starlings remain unmolested. Highland cattle, fierce looking but mildly mannered, thrive in the fields nearby.

The neighbouring demonstration garden was established in 1975 in the original walled garden and is now used for educational purposes. Attractions include a garden for the disabled and an old gardener's bothy which has been restored to show what life was like for the gardener around the end of the 19th century.

Along the riverside, beside the yew trees, you may, if you are lucky, see a kingfisher. Glasgow is near the northern limit of their distribution. Mink and otter may also be spotted in and around the water.

After passing the tennis courts and main drive, you enter a wood of horse chestnuts, sycamores, limes and beeches that were planted in the late 1800's. Beyond this, in a modern building of imaginative design, is the Burrell Collection.

This priceless collection of over 8,000 artefacts - textiles, ceramics, furniture, stained glass and works of art - was given to the city by shipping magnate Sir William Burrell in 1944. Ancient Chinese pottery is displayed alongside Japanese prints, Eastern tapestries and antiquities from Iraq, Egypt, Greece and Italy.

The main attraction on the rest of the walk is varied woodland, full of birdlife. North Wood, a mature mixed woodland, covers the northern part of the park. The route leads through sycamores and elms and across a stream in an area of Corsican and Scots pines which attract flocks of elusive coal tits. To the right of the path is a motte, typical of the kind built in the west of Scotland during the 12th and 13th centuries. All that remains of it now are two round banks with a ditch in between. The banks will once have supported a stockade, within which the local people lived with their livestock.

Further on is Pollok fish pond, which contains perch and three spined sticklebacks, as well as frogs, toads and newts. If you are fortunate, you may see long tailed tits chattering through the trees. There are also goldcrests.

Treecreepers, chiffchaffs and great spotted woodpeckers thrive in the old sessile oaks further along in the walk, while the red oaks and turkey oaks in the woods to the south abound with grey squirrels.

A visit to historic Pollok House rounds off the walk through its 360 acre park. The neo Palladian central block of the house, designed by William Adam, is probably Glasgow's most significant surviving piece of 18th century domestic architecture, while inside is one of Britain's finest collections of Spanish masters, including works by El Greco, Goya and Murillo. There is also some superb 18th and 19th century furniture.