During the 1970s, one day I strayed from the post-war sprawl of Linthaugh Road in Pollok to an enclave known as Corkerhill, passing the railway workers’ cottages and trespassing on impossibly rural farmland. By pure chance I had arrived at a strange and magical place. Pollok Estate wasn’t so much a park as an exotic parallel universe. Here was an old and venerable mansion, Pollok House, with its artefacts and formal gardens and ancient gnarled beech, the White Cart…