On our recent stopover in Glasgow I had thought that we might have our lunch at one of The Willow Tearooms in the city. But we were too busy photographing the loads of gorgeous buildings nearby, so we ended up just having Cornish pasties – on the go. Next time we’ll be more organised.
These tearooms were designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh – as I’m sure you will have realised. The photos above are of the tearoom at the bottom of Buchanan Street. You can read about them here. The actual tearoom is upstairs I believe.
The photos below are of the tearooms at the top of Sauchiehall Street. These have only fairly recently been opened as a tearoom again as the building had been taken over by a jewellers for some years.
I think the windows of this one are wonderful. You can see images of the tearooms here.
It was Miss Cranston who commissioned C.R. Mackintosh to design her tearooms for her and you can see the original interior in the Kelvingrove Art Galleries in the west end of Glasgow. There are more images of The Miss Cranston interior in the gallery here.
Nowadays of course there are gift shops alongside the tearooms. There’s so much Mackintosh inspired ‘stuff’ around that we have taken to calling it Mockintosh.
In fact I couldn’t resist buying some Mackintosh inspired fabric from the nearby Manders shop. I got a couple of yards in their sale, at a seventh of the original price! I have no idea what I’m going to use it for though.
I love the tea shops and the buildings. Gorgeous! The material is lovely, too. I just adore Mackintosh’s designs.
Joan,
I’m definitely having afternoon tea if not lunch in one of them next time we go!
The window is just lovely, as is the fabric–if it were me, I would make a table runner. The colors go so well together–soothing and elegant.
JaneGS,
I must admit I hadn’t thought of a table runner, but that’s a good idea, thanks.
Lovely fabric, Katrina. I’m sure you’ll find a great use for it. I love the Willow tearooms, and CRM’s designs generally.
Evee,
Me too, but it’s so sad that he didn’t have a great career when he was alive, he was too far ahead of the times.