Botanic Gardens Garage

This is a very rare example of an early multi-storey car park (parking garage). It's located in Glasgow's West End and takes its name from the nearby Botanic Gardens. The front is clad in terracotta tiles. The building was built in parts between 1906 & 1912 and may be oldest building of its type in the UK. Wikipedia claims that the first multi-storey car park in the world was built in Chicago in 1918, so they're not always correct.

It was built in the early days of the motor car for the occupants of the nearby tenement buildings to park their new contraptions. There are pumps inside so it must have been used as a filling station in the recent past. The building is currently unused but in reasonable condition and there are plans to covert it into a gymnasium.   

   

Schoolmaster's House, Moniaive, Dumfries & Galloway

This building dates from 1865 and has a striking appearance from the use of contrasting grey whin & painted masonry. The clock tower can be seen from anywhere in this small village and thus gave the schoolchildren no excuse for being late for class.

 

 

The Corona Bar, Shawlands

One of my old watering holes. The first home I owned was a flat near this famous Southside pub.

On a corner site bounded by a dance hall (The Malborough in my day, the Shed now) the pub was built in 1913 and is a slightly garish building set amongst the uniform Victorian sandstone of the area. The pub had a strange setting as a "pub within a pub". In my day "Maxwells" was an "L" shaped establishment in the Malborough building surrounding the Corona. When I drank there it was probably pretty much as the Edwardian original.

So if you want to visit an old fashioned Glasgow boozer…forget it, you're too late. Some time ago the Corona was opened out and joined with Maxwells to form a soulless barn of a pub - part of the John Barras pub chain, I think.   

*** Update***

I read in my local newspaper that the west end bar & restaurant "The Butterfly and the Pig" is taking over the Corona. They are planning to "restore many original features".  

*** Update#2***

I stuck my head in the door of "The Butterfly and the Pig" and it's still a dump.

Glasgow Tower

Glasgow Tower was built in 2001 as part of the Science Centre on the south bank of the River Clyde, west of the city centre. The entire tower rotates to give panoramic views of the city from the viewing gallery. Sounds great eh? Well no. The bearing at the base of the tower failed soon after opening causing the tower to be closed for two years. In 2005 the lift failed with visitors having to be rescued by the fire brigade. The tower was closed to the public in 2010 after further problems.

The tower re-open in the summer this year, but…. It isn't rotated when visitors are up the tower and the lifts are not operated if the wind speed exceeds 20 mph, a common event I'd think. 

Argyll Motor Works, Alexandria

This looks like an art gallery or a grand public building in the Baroque style but was originally a car factory. It was constructed in 1905/6 to house Argyll Motors. At the time it was the biggest car factory in Europe. The company went bust in 1914 and it became a munitions factory in the First World War.

It was empty for most of the interwar period before becoming a torpedo factory in 1937 until the '50's. In the '60's it is said to have housed "Chevaline"  - a secret nuclear weapons project. The building lay empty between the early '70's and 1997 when it reopened as shopping centre now called "Lomond Galleries"  

Tolbooth Steeple, Glasgow.

The Tolbooth Steeple is located east of Glasgow City Centre at the crossroads of High St & Trongate and the point where the city centre becomes the less salubrious east end. Completed in 1626 the tower was once part of the Tolbooth Buildings that where the home of the City Council and the location of public execution in days past. The Tolbooth Buildings were demolished in 1921 to allow widening of High St and the construction of a neoclassical quadrant that houses the Bank of Scotland. It was originally intended that two quadrants would be built with the tower in the centre. The tower is one of the few remaining medieval buildings in an otherwise mostly Victorian city. 

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