The Jaw cottage and barn dates from 1803 and is the site of the third mill in Baldernock. The well-known painter and sculptress Flora Wood lived at The Jaw. She trained at the Edinburgh Art School and studied in Florence and Paris. Flora was a strongly three-dimensional, vigorous and exciting artist, and was influenced through her friendship with Picasso; she also met Dali. Sculpture absorbed an increasing amount of her creative energy and she was apparently a frequent visitor to Glasgow’s refuse tips, from where she would return with the most unlikely of materials including bicycle wheels, chains, iron bolts and metal fragments. These she would fuse into abstract and animal forms. Her sculpture Growth and Form is in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and her paintings are in the Lillie Gallery in Milngavie. Once asked how long she had been painting, Flora replied “All my life”.

Fiona Howie, Baldernock Community