Glasgow’s Wellspring: An Architectural Journey

Glasgow is truly a City o’ Pairts¹.  It’s a city of industry; of innovation; of architectural wonders; of artistic genius; of deprivation and enormous wealth; of hard graft and socialising; of world changing academic insights; of cultural and racial variety. It has a sense of energy it’s hard to define. Exploring Glasgow’s architecture tells its story.

Looking west down the River Clyde with the Barclay Curle Titan crane on the right (courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow)

Glasgow wears its history on its sleeve. From the ghostly remains of the Clyde docks and shipyards to the skyline grabbing tower of Glasgow University, statements of Glasgow’s past will underpin any visit, whether or not it is your intention to explore it.  

My Glasgow

 I was born and grew up in Glasgow. I studied, worked and began my married life there. My father’s family built steam engines for the Clyde’s great ships or worked at sea in their engine rooms. My mother’s father, also an engineer, was a director at the Glasgow factory of marine instrument maker Kelvin & Hughes. It was my grandfather’s encouragement and securing of financial support for a young colleague which led to the development of medical, and subsequently obstetric, ultrasound by Professor Donald of Glasgow University. ‘The University’ has been a place of work and study for me and three generations of my family. At 16, my grandson carries on the rite of passage that is ‘going into town’ at the weekends. Glasgow’s industry, innovation, academia, culture and that indefinable energy have shaped who I am.

So you might assume that I know Glasgow quite well. However, I recently came across a book and a social media page which made me realise I hardly know it, or its story, at all. Colin Drysdale’s Facebook page ‘This Is My Glasgow’ is a wonderful educational photographic odyssey through the city, from the tiniest details to the grandest buildings. He has very generously allowed me to illustrate this piece with his work. Colin’s book, ‘Glasgow Uncovered: 18 Walks Through its Past, Present and Future’, is available in the cottage.

Inspired, I decided to offer visitors to Ballat Smithy Cottage a walk of my own. Architecture is my theme, time and Glasgow’s story are our guides.

Our Journey Begins

Let’s start by taking the train from Balloch to Glasgow Queen Street ².

If you can, find a seat on the right of the train, facing forward.

The train from Balloch travels through Dumbarton, an ancient and historic place in its own right, and along the banks of the Clyde. The river comes into view on the right as the train leaves Dumbarton. Huge green bollards mark the location of the dredged deep water channel and the 250 year old Lang Dyke (Long Wall), which was the first attempt to deepen the Clyde in order to allow ships to come up to Glasgow. Regular dredging continues to this day.

The Lang Dyke & Dumbarton Rock (courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow)

Through Bowling (the Clyde end of the Forth & Clyde Canal), with its ancient harbour and view of the elegant Erskine Bridge, and Singer (a station named for the giant sewing machine factory it once served). The factory site is now a colossal retail and business park.

Beyond Westerton Station you’ll see the Forth & Clyde Canal on the right. As the train approaches Anniesland station look out (again to the right) for a view of the stark 1960s monolith of Anniesland Court. It’s the tallest listed building in Scotland and stands sentinel over Anniesland Cross, a mammoth road junction which requires familiarity or careful forward planning if you wish to avoid being swept off in completely the wrong direction when the lights change.

Anniesland Court & Anniesland Mansions (courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow )

The West End

Anniesland Court marks the beginning of our architectural time travel.

As the train leaves Anniesland Station it crosses the Great Western Road. Glance to the right as it does so and time jumps back to 1907 in the form of the graceful red sandstone Anniesland Mansions, complete with railings around the roof. The railings denote the presence of a ‘drying green’ where laundry would be aired. Each flat in Anniesland Court is equipped with a ‘drying balcony’. However they’re all on the north face of the building so presumably not intended to take advantage of the sunshine.

Travelling on, a look to the left after Hyndland Station reveals a view up Clarence Drive and the epitome of Glasgow’s West End tenements. I remember visiting a friend of my mother’s in one of these flats and my abiding impressions are of elegance and space – huge rooms, high ceilings, enormous windows and a hallway wide enough to turn a small car. They are lovely.

If you love late 19^th and early 20^th Century architecture it’s worth leaving the train at Hyndland and exploring the West End (Hyndland, Dowanhill and Kirklee). There are some absolutely stunning buildings here, commissioned and built at a time when money was no object and resources were plentiful.

However it’s important to acknowledge that much of the next part of our odyssey will reflect an uncomfortable period of British history. Some sections of Glasgow society enjoyed enormous wealth gained either directly or by association through the exploitation of slaves or cheap labour, colonisation, imperialism and unfettered plundering of natural materials, while others endured extreme poverty and hardship. The legacy of growth and creativity Glasgow people have inherited can be difficult to reconcile with the facts of its origins.

The Clyde

Our train journey is almost complete. But to the right, within the short stretch of line between Partick Station and the moment when it plunges underground opposite the historically important Govan Graving Docks, lies almost the complete story of the decline and resurrection of Glasgow’s Clydeside. The striking Riverside Museum building is in counterpoint to the occasional remnants of cobblestones, bollards and railway tracks. This well illustrated article tells the tale: (The history of the SEC site: Queen’s Dock – Untold History) .                                               

Queens Dock c1950 (courtesy of Andrew Walker)

We arrive at Queen Street like moles, underground, and emerge, blinking, in the heart of the city.

Queen Street station (courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow)

Arrival

Here is where time charges back from Edwardian to Victorian in a glorious extravaganza of architectural wonders. If there can be only one rule for visitors here, it must be to look UP. Like mediaeval cathedrals, many embellishments adorn these buildings in places only the angels are likely to see. If you restrict your gaze to ground level you miss a cornucopia of elaborate carvings, cupolas, turrets, balustrades, lanterns, finials, towers, balconies, spires and astonishingly unnecessary twiddly bits. What would otherwise be plain stone office blocks become breathtaking statements of commercial success.  Maintenance must be a nightmare.

Victorian Glasgow

Love them or hate them, there’s no denying the outstanding craftsmanship and extraordinary level of detail lavished on these buildings. Wedding-cake edifices like the Connal Building or the Merchants House will hit you in the eye as you leave the station. Glasgow City Chambers, across George Square to the left of the station, is perhaps the ultimate expression of this era of opulence. There are free public tours twice a day; the interior is worth seeing if late Victorian excess is your thing!

However, it would be unfair not to warn you that you will also be hit in the eye by monumentally ugly, apparently abandoned 1970s office blocks, road works, and construction barriers around George Square. Appreciation of Glasgow’s wonders is not without its challenges!

Connal building detail and Merchant’s House (courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow )

Walk down past the Merchants House to St. Vincent Place. Turn right and on your right look out (and UP!) for the 1906 Anchor Line Building, clad in white ceramic. It’s the place where thousands of Scots began their Transatlantic voyages on Clydebuilt ships. Like many of these fabulously ornate buildings, it lay empty for over a decade until very recently being sympathetically restored and repurposed. Drop in to  Atlantic Bar & Brasserie or The Anchor Line – St Vincent Place and experience the opulent interior of this much loved, beautiful building.

1906 Anchor Line building

Buchanan Street

The next junction is Buchanan Street. Cross St. Vincent Place and turn left onto the second busiest shopping street in Britain (London’s Oxford Street is busiest). Here that special Glaswegian energy crackles and ‘if you have to ask you can’t afford it’. Princes’ Square is a glittering place to eat, drink, take a rest and watch the people, and the elegant Argyll Arcade has been Glasgow’s centre for diamonds, watches and jewellery for 200 years.

Buchanan Street and the Merchant City were the strongholds of the 18^th and early 19^th Century ‘Tobacco Lords’. Their gains were no less rampant and ill-gotten than their later counterparts but they expressed them in a much more restrained and dignified style of building. We’re now coming to the heart of a past which, while it can’t be changed, must be recognised.  ‘Glasgow should own up to its dark secret’ – BBC News.

The Merchant City

Once you’ve explored Buchanan Street, go through either Royal Bank Place or Exchange Place to Royal Exchange Square and the Gallery of Modern Art. Cross Queen Street and walk down Ingram Street. A wander around Virginia Street, Glassford Street and Hutcheson Street to your right will provide a good feel for the Merchant City.

However if you’re expecting elegant Georgian townhouses on a par with Edinburgh’s New Town, which was built over the same period, you’ll be disappointed. This part of Glasgow is a hodge-podge of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian styles, well mixed with more recent additions. You’re as likely to come across a brand new glass and steel structure nestling among its grandparents as you are to spot a much older building peeping out from a hidden lane. Many of the most grand were simply warehouses.

Late 18thC tenement, Virginia St.; 1850s former warehouse, Ingram St.; 1790 Trades Hall, Glassford St. (all courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow)

This part of the city seems quieter, less frenetic than the streets full of shoppers, buskers, and sightseers. But it’s home to the University of Strathclyde and the City of Glasgow College, with a vibrant night life, arts and music venues, clubs, bars and restaurants, so don’t be fooled by its calm exterior.

Babbity Bowster (courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow)

The Babbity Bowster pub on Blackfriars St. is a classic Georgian mansion from 1790. It takes a bit of finding but it’s worth making the detour to this lovely, relaxed little place for a meal or a drink. The Babbity Bowster is a traditional wedding dance, and a children’s game.

Old Glasgow

Ingram Street ends abruptly at a wide crossroads surrounded by startlingly modern buildings. Engrossed as we are in our thoughts of history, it’s quite a disorientating experience. This is High Street, the oldest street in Glasgow, and, until around 1735, one of only eight streets in the entire city. Before then, the Glasgow you’ve just left didn’t exist.  But it would be a mistake to assume that the Glasgow which did exist before its meteoric rise in the18^th and 19^th Centuries was a sleepy little place. Glasgow people have always been entrepreneurs, problem solvers, innovators and fortune seekers.

The Trades House and the Merchants House were formally established in 1605, recognizing Glasgow’s rising prominence as a hub for manufacturing and trade. Both institutions are active in the city to this day. However, very little from that time remains for us to see. Looking right from the end of Ingram Street reveals the Tolbooth Steeple at Glasgow Cross, celebrating its 400^th birthday in 2027. The Steeple is the anchor at the south end of High Street. Our back-in-time historic thread runs north to Provand’s Lordship, a unique survivor from 1471and an understated architectural counterpoint to the flamboyance we’ve just walked through.  

Now turn left, up the hill.

High Street

 High Street today is probably just as busy and noisy as it was when it was only wide enough to admit a horse and cart. Fortunately for us it’s a lot less filthy. It’s an invigorating mixture of brand new structures, lovely late 19^th & early 20^th Century tenements, hoardings in front of gap sites, industrial remnants, beautiful giant works of art, gardens and little wild patches. Opposite the train station a single elegant tenement stands surrounded by wild flowers.

The campus of Strathclyde University catches your eye on the left, along George Street. Blink and you’ll miss the Glasgow Gallery of Photography On the way back down the hill later, look out for Smug’s mural of St. Mungo.

Murals by Smug (Simon Bates)

Glasgow never gives up. It’s constantly reinventing itself. Here in its oldest street it feels as if Glasgow comes alive.

The Cathedral

Glasgow Cathedral had already been a place of Christian worship and pilgrimage for over 350 years when Provand’s Lordship was a new build. The current Cathedral building was consecrated in 1197. At that time the site had already been revered for 600 years as the burial place of Glasgow’s Patron Saint, the 6^th Century missionary St. Mungo.  No matter your religious or cultural affiliation the significance of this sacred place is undeniable.

The visitor entrance to the Cathedral is at the side, on the right ³.

Glasgow Cathedral has no aspirations to be glorious, uplifting or magnificent. As befits the Scottish Protestant faith it’s solid, dignified and austere, and its originally pale blond stone has absorbed centuries of smoke, soot and grime to become, inside and out, almost black. And the interior is dark, particularly downstairs in the Lower Church. There’s a hint as to how it might have looked before the 16^th Century Reformation in the startlingly bright and colourful Blacader Aisle, on the right hand side looking towards the altar.

Journey’s End

Our time-travel objective is the Lower Church, or Crypt, where just about the only spot of colour is the ancient tomb of St. Mungo. Pilgrims and worshippers have trodden these stones for almost 900 years. The tomb itself may have been on this spot for 1400 years. The stillness, the silence and the respect which has honoured the sanctity of this place for so long are palpable.

Tomb of St. Mungo, Glasgow Cathedral

But then, in the farthest right hand corner of the dark church, something shines.

Glasgow Cathedral crypt

The Wellspring

We have reached our destination. This is The Wellspring of the City of Glasgow.

Glasgow’s wellspring, Glasgow Cathedral

‘The Well’ (courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow )

The well is understood to mark the spot on the Molendinar Burn where St Mungo preached and performed baptisms. It’s possible that this place was also sacred to pre-Christian people. The well is breathtakingly beautiful. From boarding the train in Balloch we have travelled back through almost 2000 years of human history ⁴. What a wondrous, and wonderful, end to our journey.

Footnotes:

1. ’A ‘Lad O’ Pairts is a youth, particularly one from a humble background, who is considered talented or promising.’ (Scotland: Scots Dictionary – L)
2. Train travel information. Journey Planner | Official Train Ticket Info | National Rail Buy a return ticket to High Street. After you leave the Cathedral a short walk down the hill brings you to High Street station; Balloch trains leave from the right hand platform. Sit on the left for the journey home.
3. Cathedral opening times: Glasgow Cathedral: Prices and Opening Times | Hist Env Scotland.
4. The Glasgow Story is a treasure trove of historic information if you want to linger for a while in old Glasgow.

Visit Things to do near Loch Lomond | Ballat Smithy Cottage for more things to do in and around Glasgow.

Title image of Glasgow Unversity Gilbert Scott Building courtesy of Colin M. Drysdale/This Is My Glasgow

To see more of Colin Drysdale’s work follow his Facebook page This Is My Glasgow , or visit his shop.