Towns > Helensburgh > 1875 - Battrum's guide and directory to Helensburgh and neighbourhood

20 HELENSBURGH GUIDE.
generally tastefully laid off in flowers and shrubbery ; and
as a degree of emulation prevails in the cultivation of flowers,
this leads to the exhibition of considerable neatness in the
aspect of these gardens ; and in the summer mornings the
atmosphere is at times so laden with sweet perfumes, arising
like incense from them, that you almost realise what dwelling
in a land of spices means. Owing to its southern exposure,
and comparative immunity from cold winds and sharp frosts,
flowers attain great beauty and perfection, and many varie-
ties of plants, found elsewhere thriving only under shelter,
grow freely here in the open air.
Attractive as it is, it might have been made much more so
with the means at command of the corporation and inhabit-
ants. The prevailing error which seems to rule at Scotch
watering-places has done something to mar the beauty and
destroy the attractiveness of Helensburgh as a popular
resort. The idea all along has been to conform it in appear-
ance as much as possible to a commercial town, which it never
will be. All bits of attractive scenery have been carefully
removed ; the streets have been levelled with most judicious
care ; the streams bridged over and covered out of sight, and
the square and park are utterly divested of any ornament
whatever. "Well macadamised road, and plenty of it, is no
doubt a great boon — indeed, so is plenty of roadway, whether
well or ill kept ; but the great fact so thoroughly kept in
view in Continental and English watering-places, that the
prosperity of the place depends more on its attractiveness
than on its purely useful features, has been very much
ignored here. The idea in practice has been, — rout the
visitor or inhabitant out of every cover; keep him to acres
of bare street; give him no shelter, no pleasant wooded
haunt; let the noonday sun bask and beat on him ; provide him