Overlee Playing Fields, commonly referred to as Overlee Park, is a public park in

Stamperland Stamperland is a suburban neighbourhood in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire, Scotland. Part of the Greater Glasgow conurbation, it is situated on the west bank of the White Cart Water about south of Glasgow city centre, and just outside the city bo ...

, Clarkston,

East Renfrewshire East Renfrewshire ( sco, Aest Renfrewshire; gd, Siorrachd Rinn Friù an Ear) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. Until 1975, it formed part of the county of Renfrewshire for local government purposes along with the modern council areas of ...

, south of

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, Scotland.

History

The origins of Overlee Playing Fields are in farming. The area the park contains today is around half of the area of Overlee Farm, which existed during the 19th century. In the early 20th century half of Overlee Farm was built upon for housing, as were the neighbouring Slamanshill Farm (which is what Strawhill Road is named after today) and Stamperland Farm; the

name persists in the name of the neighbourhood. The other part of Overlee Farm was turned into the park, with the farm buildings still in existence behind the trees on the right at the entrance to the park. In the early 1800s, the remains of a village of underground dwellings (''

souterrain ''Souterrain'' (from French ''sous terrain'', meaning "under ground") is a name given by archaeologists to a type of underground structure associated mainly with the European Atlantic Iron Age. These structures appear to have been brought northw ...

s'' or ''weems'') from around 2000 years earlier was uncovered by the local landowner preparing the ground for use as a quarry, but its significance was not recognised and the evidence was destroyed.Clarkston, Stamperland & Netherlee
Portal to the Past (East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure) Following the death of

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...

in 1936 the King George's Fields Foundation was established to give grants for the establishment of playing fields, the work of the foundation is now undertaken by charity

Fields in Trust Fields in Trust, is a British charity set up in 1925 as the National Playing Fields Association (NPFA), by Brigadier-General Reginald Kentish and the Duke of York, later King George VI, who was the first president, which protects parks and green s ...

. Overlee Park has been legally protected since July 1938. The entrance to the park is also historically important: there are carvings on the entrance designating the fields as

King George's Fields A King George's Field is a public open space in the United Kingdom dedicated to the memory of King George V (1865–1936). In 1936, after the king's death, Sir Percy Vincent, the then-Lord Mayor of London, formed a committee to determine a ...

, which have been somewhat damaged since being built but are still visible today. As recently as 2007, the playground in the park had a major refurbishment. In 2018, there was a large-scale incident at the park, during which teenagers celebrating after receiving their exam results were attacked, and three people were hospitalised.

Features

Overlee Park contains four football pitches, a large playground, a woodland area and Overlee Family Centre (a nursery school, plus a separate provision for community sports – changing rooms etc), completed in 2021 – it replaced a sports pavilion at the site, which had fallen into disrepair in the 2010s and been occupied by bats, which were re-homed. Overlee is the home venue of local amateur football team Busby AFC, founded in 1980;Venue
Busby Amateur FC its youth section was international player

Aiden McGeady Aiden John McGeady (born 4 April 1986) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for Scottish Premiership club Hibernian. Born in Scotland, he represented the Republic of Ireland national team from 2004 until 2017. He started his c ...

's first club in the 1990s.

References

{{Reflist Parks in East Renfrewshire Clarkston, East Renfrewshire