Map of Glasgow, 1641
The old city of Glasgow was some way east of the present city centre, and was situated around Glasgow Cross and the Cathedral. Just how small is was can be seen from the first published map of the city which dates from 12th June 1641 when James Colquhoun was paid "one pound sterling" for the drawing shown above. The modern convention of having the north at the top of the page is not followed and the westward flow of the Clyde is shown vertically with the River Kelvin joining the mainstream at the top of the page.
Tolbooth Steeple
At Glasgow Cross, the old heart of the city, stands the Tolbooth steeple. The tower is now a traffic island in the middle of High Street, and is all that remains of the old Tolbooth which was built in 1627 to house Glasgow's council chamber and administrative headquarters. The old building, which was attached to the tower, was demolished after the first world war.
Tron Steeple
The Tron steeple is a familiar landmark on the Trongate, close to Glasgow Cross.
A "tron" is a heavy beam or balance associated with the most ancient system of weights used in Scotland and is derived from the Old French "trone" for scales. Heavy goods, ready for the marketplace, would have been weighed in public within the old building.
Trades Hall
The beautiful Trades Hall of Glasgow was built in 1794 to Robert Adam's unique interpretation of the neo-classical.
Savings Bank of Glasgow
In 1895 J.J Burnet added a single storey banking hall to the front of the Glasgow Savings Bank, which had been erected 30 years earlier to his father's plans.
The French Beaux-Arts style can be seen elsewhere in Glasgow in the beautiful libraries designed by James. R. Rhind who had practiced in Montreal, Quebec at the end of the nineteenth century.
Hutchesons Hall
In addition to the Royal Exchange in Queen Street, David Hamilton was also responsible for Hutcheson's Hall in Ingram Street. It was erected in 1805 to replace the earlier Hutcheson' s Hospital which had been named after its 17th century benefactors. The building has unique styling with each layer borrowing from various traditions, before it is crowned with a sharp steeple. Original statues of the Hutcheson brothers can be seen in niches outside the main hall, which is situated above the exhibition space and shop, which are at street level.
John Street Church
The Merchant city has seen a resurrection in recent years, with old buildings being converted into flats, pubs and other commercial premises.
John Thomas Rochead (left) was born in Edinburgh in 1814, and was responsible for works such as the Wallace monument in Stirling and the building that was to become BBC Scotland's headquarters in Queen Margaret Drive.
Copper Dome, Glassford Street
The restoration of old buildings in the Merchant City involves rediscovering lost skills and using traditional materials which would have been commonplace 100 years ago.
Ramshorn Kirk
St David's Church, later known as Ramshorn Kirk, is situated in Ingram Street. It had been without a congregation for a long while before being purchased by Strathclyde University in 1983 for £20,000. This may seem like a good deal for the university, but the cost of converting the church into a lecture theatre was in excess of £350,000. Likewise the city churches which have been converted into theme pubs have generally been acquired for nominal sums, but the huge expense of conversion and renovation has to be considered by any potential developer.
City & County Buildings
The former Glasgow Sheriff Court in Wilson Street was originally built as the City and County Buildings in 1844. The block was extended all the way back to Ingram Street later in the century. The erection of the City Chambers in George Square in 1888 led to a change of use for the County Buildings, housing Glasgow Sheriff Court for the next 100 years or so. Part of frieze facing Wilson Street
St Andrew's Church
St Andrews Church situated in St Andrews Square, off the Saltmarket is one of the oldest churches in Glasgow, dating from 1756.
High Court
The courthouse for the High Court of Judiciary, one of the supreme courts of Scotland, is situated in the Saltmarket, facing Glasgow Green. Such is the level of business provided by the criminal fraternity that a new extension with additional courtrooms was constructed in 1997 behind the original building. It was carefully designed to be of similar height to the old building and was constructed with matching coloured sandstone.
St Andrew's Cathedral, Clyde Street
St Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral opened on 22nd December 1817 as a simple chapel, some 60 years before the restoration of the Scottish hierarchy. It was built at a time when Glasgow's industrial expansion was attracting many Catholic workers from Ireland and parts of the Scottish Highlands. These incomers to the city raised £13,000 to create a familiar place of worship on the southern edge of the old town on the banks of the Clyde.
Plans were announced in September 2007 for a £5million makeover,
including an extension to the cathedral's sanctuary and the creation of a cloistered garden.
The cathedral will continue to play its part in the regeneration of the riverside, which is going on all around it.
To find out more about Glasgow's original mediaeval cathedral and the surrounding buildings you should visit my
Cathedral Precinct page.
Glasgow & Edinburgh Architecture
The spelling is phonetic with Glasgow being "Clasgua", Partick being "Parthick" and Rutherglen being "Ruglan".
A larger sized copy of the
1641 Glasgow map can be viewed here
The outline of the missing part can still be spotted by the difference in stone colour on the west side of the tower.
In 2004 the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust assigned their interest in the structure to the Tron Theatre, which is situated in Parnie Street, immediately behind the tower.
The tower was an early 17th century addition to a pre-Reformation church on the site, which was destroyed by fire in 1793.
The present day theatre complex with its trendy bars and restaurant was created from the altered replacement church with modern extensions. The elaborate sandstone wall to the east of the tower at the corner of Chisholm Street is actually just a screen for an airshaft ventilating the Central low-level rail line. The shops to the west of the tower are typical of the mid-Victorian architecture in the area.
The portico is raised above the ground floor central entrance, which in turn is topped with a well proportioned dome. The outer bays are 19th century additions, but take nothing away from the overall balance of the design.
A £1.2million project to restore the building commenced in November 2001.
Burnet (left) had studied at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and was a member of the Société Centrale des Architectes Francais.
His Baroque inspired design for the banking hall features a disproportionately large dome, which adds to the attraction of this flamboyant little building.
A statue of St Mungo, Glasgow's patron saint occupies a little niche above the front door.
The bank was vacated in 1999, and remained unoccupied until the summer of 2002 when Giorgio Armani temporarily occupied the premises as a fashion showroom. It is now occupied by the Jigsaw fashion chain.
With Gianni Versace's showroom on the other side of the road, the Merchant City became a much more fashionable part of town!
This was the branch that I used, and I found that the beautiful banking hall compensated for some of the pain of paying my bills. The banking hall is now a sales area which can be visited again by lovers of achitecture as well as dedicated followers of fashion.
The excellent display gallery was added in 1999 and is a must to be visited when passing. The remainder of the building is used as office space for the National Trust for Scotland, which promotes the preservation of places of historic interest throughout Scotland.
The former John Street Church is now a pub/ diner, which regularly re-invents itself with a new name.
It was built in 1860 by David Hamilton's former chief draughtsman, J. T. Rochead. By coincidence his other building in the same area, the Bank of Scotland at the corner of George Square and St Vincent Place, has also been converted into a public house, the Counting House.
John Street Church was originally built for a congregation of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, but it is by no means typical of the ecclesiastical architecture of Glasgow! The huge Ionic columns and the glazed areas between them dominate its neo-classical design.
When you remember that David Hamilton's Hutcheson's Hall was completed in 1805, and the Royal Exchange in 1832, and that his star pupil, J.T. Rochead, worked into the 1870's, you can see what effect Hamilton had on Glasgow architecture before the time of Thomson and Mackintosh.
The shiny copper dome (above) being finished for a renovated red sandstone office block, will eventually revert to the familiar green colour of the surrounding copper domes and cupolas.
The church dates from 1826, built in Gothic Revival style by an English architect, Thomas Rickman, whose plans featured the large central tower which dominates the structure.
The competition winning neo-classical design by the Glasgow based partnership of William Clarke & George Bell features an elevated portico sitting on a decorated plinth with a frieze of classical figures at street level.
With it’s current refurbishment, the enormous façade was retained around a new interior structure which has a mixed residential/ commercial use. Unfortunately the modernistic glazed frame sticking out from the top of the classical frontage presents an eysore to passing visitors.
The planning authority should have insisted that the new structure was kept within the height of the classical façade thus preserving the integrity of the original exterior design.
Allan Dreghorn's design was fashionable in its day, featuring a large classical portico supported by Corinthian columns. The thoughtful and elegant composition is topped with a graceful very slender steeple.
It was completed in 1814, a year after the death of its architect, William Stark, who also designed St George's Tron Church in the city centre.
The historically accurate Greek Doric portico has none of the additional adornments of David Hamilton's Royal Exchange or Alexander Thomson's churches, which are also modelled in the classical Greek style.
Behind the portico, an atrium leads to two full height courtrooms. Ancillary accommodation is provided in the 2-storey side wings, one of which contained a caretaker's flat until 1976.
The provision of this extra accommodation allowed a full refurbishment of the original courthouse to go ahead in 1999/2000.
James Gillespie Graham designed the chapel in a conservative style that anticipated the Gothic revival of later in the century. There is a definite pre-Reformation air about the place both inside and out. The main features of the façade to Clyde Street are the substantial buttresses placed either side of the tastefully decorated entrance. There is a statue of St Andrew standing in a niche above the large central window which is infilled with archaic tracery.
Prior to the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, the church had been forbidden by law to set up a diocesan system. The Scottish Roman Catholic hierarchy was eventually restored by Pope Pius IX in January 1878 shortly before his death. The process was briefly delayed until 4 March 1878 when his successor, Pope Leo XIII, signed the necessary documents. The office of Archbishop of Glasgow which had disappeared in 1603 with the death of James Beaton (who had been exiled in France since 1560) was then re-established.
Archbishop Charles Eyre (1817-1902), Administrator Apostolic of the Western District (left), became the first custodian of the restored see. The erection of a cathedral chapter followed in 1884, and in 1889 the old chapel obtained the status of a cathedral. The internal renovation which followed was the work of Pugin & Pugin who designed the intricately decorated altars and sanctuary screens between 1889 and 1904. By then the archdiocese consisted of 27 churches and 97 clergy.
Mass is celebrated each weekday at 1pm and visitors to the city are always welcome at the service.
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Site created and maintained by Gerry Blaikie
Unauthorised reproduction of any image on this website is not permitted.
All original artwork and text Copyright© G.Blaikie 2002-2008.
