Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum

This grand red sandstone building was constructed in 1901 in the Spanish Baroque style to house the city's art collection.

There is an urban myth that the gallery was built back-to-front and the architect jumped from one of the towers when he found out. Not true, of course.

I visited the museum when I was a child and remember the model ships in glass cases. These were made by the shipyards of the vessels built on the Clyde. They are now in the new Transport Museum. 

The coats of arms of Scottish towns & Countires are carved above these windows

The Jack Vettriano exhibition dissuaded me from entering the premises

The Scott Monument, Edinburgh

Completed in 1844 this is a monument to the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe, Rob Roy etc) It overlooks Princes Street Gardens in the centre of the capital. It is built from sandstone and would have been golden brown when built but is stained black by coal soot. There was a proposal to clean the monument in the 1990's but the only way of removing the staining was by grit blasting and that would have damaged the stone.

An impressive structure in a fine setting but not everybody liked it:

'I am sorry to report the Scott Monument a failure. It is like the spire of a Gothic church taken off and stuck in the ground.' Charles Dickens, 1858.

Photos taken 29 October last year

Thunderbird 3 - Gerry Anderson must have got the idea from the monument!

Glasgow Cathedral

I think I'm like most Glaswegians in knowing that the city has a cathedral (actually there are four) but not thinking much of it. This may be because of its location. It's surrounded by the Royal Infirmary and the view from Castle Street is not impressive. It looks no different to the scores of other churches in the city. The best place to appreciate the scale of the building is from the Necropolis to the east of the cathedral. The cathedral is mostly 15th century in the medieval gothic style. The Necropolis is also worth a visit to see the final resting place of the great & good of Victorian Glasgow.

The cathederal from Castle St (google streetview)

from the Necropolis

 

in 1693

The Finnieston Crane

The crane is a landmark of the Glasgow riverfront and a symbol of the city. It was built at Stobcross quay in 1932 and was used to load the engineering products of the city onto ships for export around the world. In particular it lifted the locomotives built in Springburn in the north of the city.

The crane working at Stobcross quay in 1957

Lifting a loco, 1952

A loco being transported from the Hyde Park works to the docks. This photograph looks ancient but the tele forks on the motorcycle indicates the late '40s

Loco being transported to docks, 1955

Arnold Clark Vehicle Repair Building

It's not often that an industrial building is fulfilling its original purpose 100 years after construction but this is the case here. Located in Kilbirnie Street on Glasgow's south side this building was constructed in 1913 for an automobile coachwork company and is still used for vehicle repair today.

As a former civil engineer it is of interest to me since it is an early use of reinforced concrete using the Kahn system from the USA.

I spent three years working in this area during the construction of the M74 Motorway. I visited the building a couple of times to take progress photographs of a large viaduct. 

One of my progress photographs from the building

Finnieston Tunnel Rotundas

I'm sure that a lot of Glaswegians don't know that there are tunnels under the Clyde between Finnieston & Govan, west of the city centre. Three 16 foot diameter tunnels were constructed opening in 1895. Two for traffic and one for pedestrians & a water main. Traffic accessed the tunnel via hydraulic lifts, six in each rotunda building on either bank. There were ferries in this area but the tunnel allowed horse drawn carts to carry a heavier load over the river because they did not have to negotiate the ramp onto the ferry.

The tunnels were not a success and the company running them went bust after a few years. The city corporation ran the tunnels until 1943 when the lifts were removed. The pedestrian tunnel closed in 1980.

The rotundas were eventually renovated. The north one is now restaurants. The south one is currently unused. 

South rotunda

North rotunda (Finnieston crane behind)

 

North rotunda

Horse drawn traffic in 1897

 

Charing Cross & St George's Mansions

The tenement building is Glasgow's defining architectural style and the most extravagant examples can be found on either side of the M8 motorway on Sauchiehall Street & Woodlands Road.