Located between Cathcart Road, Albert Road, Eskdale Street and Dixon Road, the Crosshill Quad has been completely renovated to became a sanctuary for more than 200 residents.

A local resident gives a fresh lick of paint to Crosshill Quad

Words by Annie Tothill | Photos by Ginny Allwood

Enter the Crosshill Quad through the back door of a close and you will see a grassy mound surrounded by planters with various plants growing, trees and a carefully edged path. Sometimes children will be playing out, squirting each other with water pistols or collecting insects. Someone might be eating their lunch on the picnic bench or lounging in the sun reading a book. There is a ‘to do list’ on the community noticeboard of jobs that need doing.

Surrounding the mound, each yard is different; a gardener’s paradise full of vegetables, flowers and herbs or a freshly mown lawn and washing line for drying clothes. Painted bin sheds and fences brighten up the space, especially in the winter months.

A Facebook group with 176 members from the local streets is regularly used for sharing garden produce, giving away household items and inviting people to litter pick the surrounding streets. This group then started to ask how the quad could be transformed to all of their benefit.

One neighbour says when he moved in the quad in 2014, it was far from the beautiful communal space it is today: “It was full of furniture and fridges and nappies and rotting fish and dead birds. And rightfully everyone around it disowned it and said it wasn’t to do with them.”

He joined attempts to clean up the quad and make it a space that people could use, following in the footsteps of neighbours who had started strimming the mound and planting wildflowers. “I found that there was this path that was totally buried, and I thought if I can clear the path and cut the grass then it might be a space people want to use.”

“An informal group formed with the view that if we can get rid of the rubbish, cut the grass, paint the fences, we’d have a good blank canvas.” South Seeds supported residents’ efforts through a community consultation, building planters and providing composters. They set up a Facebook group which allowed people to organise clean-ups and more neighbours to get involved. A constituted group was formed, the Crosshill Quad Committee, with its own bank account to pay for supplies such as paint for the bin sheds.

An active member of the Crosshill Quad Committee describes how the look and feel of the space can transform people’s attitudes: “It’s one thing to be clearing the rubbish, the next step is making it nice. If you clear up, then people might think there’s more space for dumping rubbish. But if you make it look like a garden, people know not to dump rubbish in gardens.” She recommended planting big flowers like sunflowers and poppies early on to bring colour into a shared outdoor space.

“This place has been really important to me in terms of getting to know neighbours, making friends, being outside, bringing wildlife in and having a space to go to. A lot of people don’t have the knowledge that you need to maintain a tenement flat. This was a hub to be able to do that, learn myself and pick up knowledge of other people.

Another resident also reflected on how essential the quad became to people during lockdown: “We never for a minute imagined that we’d have a year of lockdown. When we were closed in, it was literally at the centre of our world. Several times when I was off work I could just go outside and read a book, and before long someone would come out and see how you were.”

What’s next for the quad? New ideas are popping up all the time, such as the shared tool shed for gardening and maintenance of the mound. As one neighbour said: “It’s there to get as many people involved as possible, build it and they will come! One of our neighbours dumped a wardrobe and we repurposed it and painted it.”

“It would be great to do workshops on tenement maintenance in the back garden. Project a film on a wall and share knowledge in a more communal way.”

Coming up with future plans is, in the words of one resident: “a case of ‘what do the community want, what would benefit the community?’ It’s a collective space for us all to enjoy together.”

If you are a resident of the Crosshill Quad and want to join the Facebook group or find out more about the committee, contact: crosshillquadcommunity@gmail.com.

This article was originally published in the fourth issue of our magazine. To purchase a copy of any of our issues, please visit our online shop.

Have your and your neighbours worked together to build your own shared sanctuary? Post details in the comments below or email hello@greatergovanhill if you’d like to share your story.