I chanced across something intriguing in the following:

NS 66 N.W. (1946) (Lanarkshire) - Ordnance Survey Air Photo Mosaics, 1944-1950 - National Library of Scotland. Glasgow, Alexandra Park area, Cumbernauld Road.

For the moment, you can quickly see this in modern view in the Secret Scotland - Map Sandbox, where I've tied the Park marker to the other map links below the map.

I haven't been able to dig up anything relevant up about what this 1946 view shows on the land now occupied by tennis courts and other sports.

The obvious identification is some sort of camp, but the bases would appear to be soft, and just dug into the ground - as opposed the concrete bases associated with Nissen huts or similar.

The thought is that this is a temporary, tented camp, but I can't confirm this so far.

There's also a 1948 image, which looks just the same as the 1946 one on the spot:

NS 66 N.W. (194 (Lanarkshire) - Ordnance Survey Air Photo Mosaics, 1944-1950 - National Library of Scotland

I'd say it's the same pic though, perhaps processed and printed differently, or maybe another frame shot at the same time from the same roll.

However, the shadows are identical in the two, and I don't think it's credible that two aerial survey flown two years apart would take place at exactly the same time, when the sun was in exactly the same place in the sky

I presume the dark shape a pond?

The group South East of there have gone completely on the RCAHMS 1948 image (CPE_UK_0327, Frame 3027) but there is a regular pattern North East of the dark shape which is still there - could be part of the park though?  This has four rows of six shapes - could be hut bases or just flower beds.  But there is at least one structure in the middle that is larger.

The area SE of the dark shape looks as if could have been disturbed - perhaps as the site was cleared.

Something can be seen in the area SE of the dark shape on CPE_UK_0277 Frame 5441 which is 1947 but it is not as clear an image,

MB

Quoted from jmb

I presume the dark shape a pond?

Definitely - I have been in it, and can confirm the water to be both cold and wet.

I tracked down Frame 3027, but the little postcard view of the 1948 Spitfire sortie only shows the area to be "level" - I use quotes merely to acknowledge the lack of resolution, although I believe if those surface features still existed then, then they would at least give an impression of their presence, even at the limited view afforded by the image provided by RCAHMS for non-subscribers.

There is also Frame 5441, which shows the area as seen in a 1947 sortie.

Given the same qualification regarding the resolution and quality of the small image, I would hazard a speculative opinion that it just might show the area in an intermediate state, where the 1946 features have been cleared, and just might therefore be the reason why the area looks clear in the 1948 sortie.

Out of curiosity, I stuck the relevant parts of the 1946 and 1948 Air Mosaic images together, just to confirm that they really are the same original, but merely processed differently. I think someone slipped



As for the areas to the northeast...

Yes, it is worthy of a similar question, and the seeking of an answer as to what it may have been.

Obviously now gone, and landscaped, with a football pitch to its south, it was clearly a significant feature back in those 1946+ views.

Unfortunately, the detail is such that I wouldn't like to hazard even a guess as to what it may have been the site of, other than to say it was something particularly regular, formal, and well organised.

There are some marks on the ground, with a single small building in the centre - that much is clearly indicated by the shadow - but there is no evidence of traffic by way of worn areas or tracks on the ground.

I wonder if this is just something of an unused area, such as a pair of cricket pitches or playing fields (with a little clubhouse inbetween them), that was not then utilised for something more useful.

Sorry Captain, I was typing while you were suggesting

I had though about allotments, but wasn't quite able to convince myself fully due to the height of the features, as suggested by the shadows when compared to the building that can seen elsewhere in the view.

I'm most certainly not discounting the idea though, just thinking that the shapes seem to suggest a lot of work to make the raised areas indicated.

What sort of crop might be the reward from such effort?

Yes, the lack of obvious cultivation in other areas of the park was one of the reasons I didn't go with the Dig for Victory and allotment idea myself. This area just seemed to be too small, and the pattern too purposeful.

If you look at other views of real allotments, then the general layout tend to look like a much larger area which has been turned over to cultivation, and divided up into square, or rather rectangular areas, fenced or otherwise divided so that each owner can identify the areas allotted to them, hence "allotments".

Acknowledging that this is a much later and very much more well developed allotment site today, here's a modern example just to show what I have in mind:

This is Westhorn, off London Road, which I tripped over one day...

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=.....02,0.005456&z=18

Compare with the larger, but simpler arrangement massed around the foot of Dundee Law:

http://maps.google.com/maps?t=.....96,0.010911&z=17

I tramped through all of these one day, hunting down a Cold War relic that eventuall turned out be installed about four miles to the northeast, and had been misreported.