Nestled between low-set railings on Duke Street, there is a monument you may pass each day and wonder what it is all about.

It does have a striking appearance.

Its distinct shape could perhaps be taken at first glance to be a kind of mask.  Darth Vader comes to mind.

Glasgow Times:

“The Dennistoun Milestone” was commissioned by Dennistoun Community Council to mark Glasgow’s year of culture in 1990.

Sponsored by the legendary WD & HO Wills, the tobacco company on Alexandra Parade, the metal milestone was created by the artist, Jim Buckley of Glasgow Sculpture Studios.

It was unveiled by the engaging and thoughtful first female Lord Provost of Glasgow, Susan Baird, in September 1991.

At the time, the community council said it believed “a contemporary imaginative sculpture would put life in Dennistoun into perspective and the commissioning was a very tangible response to the Year of Culture".

Jim Buckley said: "The Milestone is intended to be a marker.

“The scale is small and intimate so as to function as an indicator of a 'sense of place' and to be a shrine or time capsule of the past and a monument to the future".

Mr Buckley was born in Ireland.

He studied sculpture at Crawford's School of Art in Cork, from1975-80.

Mr Buckley has been part of international conferences on sculpture and exhibited some of his work throughout Europe and the United States.

He also has a startling link to the man who sculpted the statues on the Bank of Scotland in Sauchiehall Street, winning the 1984 Benno Schotz Prize. (Eye Spy Glasgow passim)

In 1988, Mr Buckley contributed Red Gates to the Glasgow Garden Festival and then two years later, the Dennistoun Milestone.

Perhaps its spire-like structure could be seen as a modernist take on a multi-storey block. Or even a Glasgow tenement.

Originally, it was created as a time capsule and contained an image of the Glasgow skyline and some mementoes behind glass.

Dennistoun Conservation Society is keen to have the milestone repaired and restored.

You can find it on the low wall on Duke Street by the gardens at Annfield Place near Bellgrove Station.