Scottish Life Magazine

Over the last couple of days myself and Michael “aka westender” have been chaperoning a travel reporter Candace Leslie of Scottish Life Magazine, which is a wideley known American/Canadian magazine that does features on parts of Scotland, and due to Candace seeing the Paisley.org.uk website she booked a trip to spend two days here.

Well I booked a good few places for Candace to visit and I suppose when people are saying there is nothing to do in Paisley they could follow this small but handy guide to see the town of Paisley, see its buildings and meet its people and I can tell you that you will not be disappointed.

Our itinerary that I scheduled was as follows. (now please remember we did not rush any place and sometimes spent a good hour or two at a venue because the people themselves were very interesting)

Day 1: We were met at Paisley Abbey by a good friend Les Fernie, who greeted our visitors and introduced the town of Paisley and gave a brief and concise history of the town, we then went on a tour around Paisley Abbey.

Inside Paisley Abbey we were shown the rich and colourful history of just about everything that was present within the Abbey and also found out more about Les and his tours.

We then went to the Paisley Town Hall and were shown the different statues and architecture surrounding this building.

We then proceeded to the War Memorial and the location of the old Town Toll Booth, where Les concluded his tour due to the rain pelting from the sky “well it is Paisley in Scotland”

We then walked towards Hamishes Hoose along the way and Les showed us the Glen Cinema and explained about the tragedy that befell the town and its children of that dark day.

After a splendid lunch we went along Oakshaw and towards the Wynd Centre, Church Hill, The Liberal Club “where Burns once stood”, the Bull Inn and then went towards the Paisley Museum and Library.

Inside the museum we met Dan Coughlan, who is a Gem of a man and real credit to our town he explained more about the weaving industry and showed us some original looms on show in side the Paisley museum.

We then went up the Coats Observatory to look around and see the historic telescope which is still used to this day.

And to finish things off for the first day we went along to John Witherspoons statue and finished things off there, we were supposed to meet Sandy Stoddart but due to an urgent appointment we couldn’t do this at this time.

Day 2: Day two was a more structured day and we began by meeting David Osborne, who was brilliant and explained everything about Oakshaw Trinity church “the high church” and gave our guests a guided tour of the Church and we were also allowed out on the balcony just below the steeple, where the sun shone on us and gave us a lovely view of Paisley below us. Inside the Oakshaw Trinity church is one of the most amazing looking rooms you will ever see with the largest known unsupported roof of its kind.

We then went to Robert Tannahills cottage where our good friend Les Fernie met us and gave the tour and story of Tannahill’s life and death, which was amazing..

We also went to the Gallow Green and the Horseshoe at Maxwelton.

We ventured to Sma’ Shot cottages for some lunch in their splendid tea room and then met up with Ellen Farmer of the Old Paisley Society and were given an excellent and informative tour of the weaving cottages.

We then went to the Paisley Thread Mill Museum to learn about the Mill workers and the demise of the Thread mills of Paisley and were given a tour By some former mill workers May and Nessie who were both excellent and very interesting.

And last but not least we finished off our tour by visiting Coats Memorial Church.

There was so much more that I wanted to show them around Paisley but our guests were amazed at Paisley and its history and don’t let it be said there is nothing to do in our town.. get out there and have a look… and don’t just look, listen.!!