Elaine Kerr was out walking in Greenhall in recent weeks and noticed some carvings on a tree on the former Estate, which is now a public park in High Blantyre. She kindly shared her photo here.
However, whats curious is that the carvings were made when the estate was still private in 1946 (which seems to be the date most highlighted) and it wasn’t a park then obviously too. It would make sense that the only people with permitted access to be out in the open, and certainly carving on property, would be the owners themselves, or likely the children of the owners or people connected with the maintenance and groundskeeping.
The letter “P” appears to be the surname on each of the sets of carved initials. This is significant, for former estate owners were the Paul family, i.e “Paul” being their surname. Stan (Ian) Paul is now about 80 years old and he had older siblings. The Paul family were at Greenhall until 1953, when it then became the property of the Duff family. There’s a possibility that the carvings were made by the children of the Paul family. By February 1960, the Nicolson family had bought Greenhall.
Of course, it may have simply been some people passing by carving on the tree. Whoever did it though, carved this 70 years ago, just a year after WW2 ended!