Glasgow park with the famous 'hot seat' from Still Game

Victoria Park opened in the west of the city in the 19th century and is adjacent to the areas of Scotstoun, Whiteinch, Jordanhill, and Broomhill.

It was built as a dedication to and celebration of Queen Victoria in 1887, the year of her Golden Jubilee. The work was undertaken mostly by unemployed shipyard workers who could create ponds, paths and carriage drives on the land.

While they were building the park, the workmen made an incredible discovery which has since become one of the park’s most fascinating features. When they tried to cut through an old quarry on the site, they discovered eleven fossilised stumps of extinct trees.

Incredibly they remained preserved in their original position from over 325 million years ago due to flooding in the area and sand in their trunks.

After it was excavated, it was decided that the settlement would remain in the park and the Fossil House was built around it. Trees, flowers and small ponds were constructed around it and it soon became a popular visitor attraction.

Glaswegians from the Victorian era to the present day enjoyed using the greenspace to play on the bowling green and sports pitches, watch live concerts in the open air, enjoy paddle boating on the water in the summer and ice-skating in the winter.

It has changed over the years as the land around it was developed and adapted, such as when roads to the Clyde Tunnel were built in the 1960s, but many of Victoria Park’s features have remained the same.

The gates at the north entrance were made by Walter MacFarlane & Co., who also built the Saracen Fountain in Alexandra Park. An inscription states that the gates were given to the park by the ‘Ladies of Partick’ to commemorate the Jubilee.

East of the lake, the clock was given to the park by Gordon Oswald, a Scotstoun landowner who donated the land to be used for the park. The park also features a war memorial which was erected to commemorate local men from Partick and Whiteinch who fought in both World Wars.

There is also a memorial to the SS Daphne, a ship which tragically sank just moments after launching from the shipyard at Govan on its first voyage.

Even though anchors were attached to each side of the ship by cables, as was the usual practice, they failed to stop the ship’s forward progress – while the starboard anchor only moved about six yards, the port one was dragged 60 yards, and this caused the ship to flip over on its left side and sink.

The tragic incident killed 124 people including young boys, and an inquiry determined that the tragedy was caused by stability issues as well as too much loose gear and too many people on board.

As well as the memorial in Victoria Park, there are other memorials in Craigton Cemetery, where around 50 victims are buried, and another in Govan’s Elder Park.

While locals who pass through it regularly recognise it easily, Victoria Park may be identifiable to those who haven’t paid it a visit as it has featured on screen.

It was the location for the hilarious Still Game episode ‘Hot Seat’, where Jack and Victor try to race other visitors to the park when it opens so that they can bag a seat on one of the best benches in the park on a very unusual sunny day in Glasgow.