Woolly says – Having arrived in Glasgow for tea yesterday, today was to be an exciting walking tour. During my research I had found hundreds of interesting places that we could head to in the city but with only one day I picked a few things that would keep everyone happy.
Glasgow is the most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in west central Scotland. It is a leading city in Scotland for finance, shopping, industry, culture and fashion, and was commonly referred to as the “second city of the British Empire” for much of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It is also the birthplace of many famous names including, John Barrowman – singer and actor, Frankie Boyle – comedian, Peter Capaldi – actor, Robert Carlyle – actor, Robbie Coltrane – actor, Billy Connolly – comedian (one of my favourites) and Lulu the famous singer had been brought up in the city.
With the humans highly impressed with my knowledge I led the way from the Quayside where were staying along the river and over the pedestrian bridge then into the streets to our first destination of the day.
Everywhere we looked there were incredible buildings, huge in size and incredibly well decorated as we crossed roads and admired as we went.
Turning our last corner, we should have been greeted by wonderful buildings and a large square but being us, we found ourselves looking at fencing surrounding the square and only glimpses of the buildings, I wasn’t impressed.
George Square is the main civic square in the city , named after King George III and initially laid out in 1781 but not developed for another twenty years, George Square is surrounded by architecturally important buildings including on the east side the palatial Municipal Chambers, also known as the City Chambers, whose foundation stone was laid in 1883, and on the west side by the Merchants’ House. As Jo did her best to capture some shoots, I decided it was time to head off to the next place on my list.
Passing more wonderful buildings, we also started to see wonderful murals adoring the sides of much newer buildings.
A lovely clock tower was next, standing alone and now acting as a traffic island, the Glasgow Tolbooth was a municipal structure at Glasgow Cross, which was the meeting place of the Royal Burgh of Glasgow, was demolished in 1921 leaving only the steeple standing. The first tolbooth erected on the site dated back to the mid 14th century. After it became a ruin, construction work on a new tolbooth started in 1626. It was designed by the master of the works, John Boyd, in the Scottish baronial style, built in ashlar stone and was completed in 1634. Having admired it for a few minutes we turned into another street and arrived at the next destination.
The Glasgow Police Museum is an independent museum opened in 2002 at the Glasgow Central Police Headquarters, before it was relocated to the Merchant City area of the city in 2009. The museum is dedicated to the history of the City of Glasgow Police, the United Kingdom’s first modern style municipal police force, with everyone thinking that it was Robert Peel who had started the force in fact Glasgow got there 29 years before him.
Two lovely, retired officers greeted us all, providing Handsome Jack with a water bowl and some treats before we took in the displays and information boards around the small museum. Charting the history from the cities first bobby to the 1970’s it was fascinating with lots of batons, uniforms and medals on show.
Corgi ears was very excited to read that Glasgow had also been the first police force to have police dogs and that Kyle one of the later dogs had been the first police dog to receive a bravery award for his work.
A second small room was full of police uniforms and hats from around the world, I thoroughly enjoyed ticking off the countries we had been to already in the world in police memorabilia.
With the museum completed we hit the streets again passing the lovely building that houses St Mungo’s Museum of Religions which we weren’t heading into today, we cut into a small park and took a rest break whilst admiring William III’s statue and the lovely buildings surrounding the small park area.
With our legs and paws slightly rested we cut past the cathedral and down a road to something that I knew that Jo would particularly like.
The Glasgow Necropolis is a Victorian cemetery with fifty thousand individuals buried there. Following the creation of Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, which we had previously been to, a wave of pressure began for cemeteries in Britain. This required a change in the law to allow burial for profit. Previously the parish church held responsibility for burying the dead but there was a growing need for an alternative. Glasgow was one of the first to join this campaign, having a growing population, with fewer and fewer attending church. Led by Lord Provost James Ewing of Strathleven, the planning of the cemetery was started by the Merchants’ House of Glasgow in 1831, in anticipation of a change in the law.
It was brilliant, with all types and sizes of memorials everywhere you looked,
we climbed higher into the site and could see views across the city and the cathedral.
Some of the most ornate were beautiful to look at. We followed the pathways all over the place finally finding a memorial to William Wallace and the Jewish part of the cemetery.
Woolly says – Once Jo had finished racing up and down with the camera we turned our attention fully to the cathedral.
Glasgow Cathedral was the cathedral church of the Archbishop of Glasgow, and the mother church of the Archdiocese of Glasgow and the province of Glasgow, from the 12th century until the Scottish Reformation in the 16th century. It is the oldest cathedral in mainland Scotland and the oldest building in Glasgow. Dedicated to Saint Mungo (also known as Kentigern), the patron saint of Glasgow, the first stone was dedicated in 1136, although much of the present cathedral dates from a major rebuilding in the 13th century.
Passing a number of memorials and taking some time to admire the graves which were everywhere we headed inside.
Inside was a gothic sensation with massive arches one on top of another.
Everywhere we looked were memorials on the walls and floors and stained glass in every direction.
The ceilings were incredible and different in different parts of the building.
Behind the curtain even more wonders met my eyes with an incredible window above the altar.
A set of steps led us down into the crypt and St Mungo’s grave along with a few others, much smaller than upstairs it was a wonderful place just to sit and enjoy the surroundings.
A second chapel was a few steps up and was starkly white in comparison to the rest of the cathedral having been completed in the 1800’s.
Passing back up the stairs we stopped to admire the window above the main entrance before arriving back outside again.
The square outside was rather lovely with more grand buildings to admire and a number of statues to celebrate the cities famous including an old friend of ours from last year, the explorer Dr David Livingstone.
The whole group seemed to be enjoying my guided tour especially the mutt who had never had so many new sniffs in one day before. I hadn’t told them that the next place on the list was in fact quite a walk away, I set off promising them lunch on the way. With that promise fulfilled we carried on the long walk until we reached the tenements area of the Glasgow.
A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. Beginning in the 1850s, purpose-built tenements of up to six stories held several households on each floor. Tenements with one or two room flats provided popular rented accommodation for workers, but in some inner city areas, overcrowding and maintenance problems led to shanty towns and linked to poverty.
Walking up the steps to the tenement house Museum I was interested to see what they looked like inside. Having paid for our tickets we wandered into a room with information on the building and the tenements in the city. The flat was owned by Agnes Toward from 1911 until 1965; after her death it and its contents were acquired by the Trust, which opened it to the public, in her lifetime she had barely changed a thing inside and it was still operating gas lighting.
Finally climbing the stairs having left waggy tail with Zoe and a whole host of his newest fan members, we entered a large hallway with a large chest of drawers and a portrait of Agnes’s father.
To the right was a bathroom which I lost no time in using the convivence.
Next door was the kitchen, filled with a large oven and hob, a butlers sink and a large array of pots and pans and the coal bunker. It was also home to one of the beds in the flat.
The living room was snug and warm and looked as though the owner had just popped out for a few minutes, nestled into a corner was another bed space.
Lastly came a double bedroom with a sewing machine and bedroom furniture of the time.
Small but very interesting to see was the overall opinion from everyone. We just needed to walk back to the accommodation which was only a few miles away and I was sure there would be plenty of buildings to admire as we headed back for the day.