Charles Rennie Mackintosh, The Hunterian, Glasgow

Posted on 16 October 2024 by Katrina

I’m just finishing off my Charles Rennie Mackintosh Humnterian posts with some random photos that I took. Below is very typical of his designs, a stained glass stylised rose.

The Hunterian even has what was the hallway of Charles and Margaret’s home in Glasgow, rebuilt but with the original furnishings.

The metal plaque below was designed by Margaret I think, she had a penchant for what some people described as ‘spooky’ figures.

I love the door below with its inset stylised glass hearts.

The cheval mirror below is in what was their bedroom, I made sure that my reflection wasn’t in the photo but in retrospect it might have made more sense than the reflection of a door which you can see. I love the design and all the wee drawers but I know that if I had it I would have to search in several of them before I found whatever I was looking for!

Anyway, if you’re a fan of C.R. Mackintosh then you will really enjoy a visit to The Hunterian in Glasgow.

The Hunterian, Glasgow – Charles Rennie Mackintosh – his dark furniture

Posted on 8 October 2024 by Katrina

We’re back at The Hunterian in Glasgow again, with the photos I took of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s dark furniture.

It’s easier to see the slightly Japanese influence in these designs I think.

I’m not sure whether I prefer his white or black furniture, but I think that the white for bedrooms is prettier – and it won’t show up the dust as much!

Anyway, if you happen to be in Glasgow and you admire Charles Rennie Mackintosh you should definitely make time to visit The Hunterian, which also has a lot of art on show, but that’s another blogpost I think.

The Hunterian, Glasgow, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Posted on 6 October 2024 by Katrina

Back in August we visited The Hunterian in Glasgow, it’s the oldest public museum in Scotland. We hadn’t been there for quite a few years. They have a lot of original Mackintosh furniture on show, it was saved from a building that the couple had lived in and he had redesigned, but after their death the building was due to be demolished, luckily the contents were saved and stored until a new home was found for them.

The Hunterian is the perfect location. I took lots of photos but as his furniture tended to be either black or white I’m splitting the photos up.

As you can see today it’s the white interiors. They’re so light and airy.

The above were all in the bedroom. Below are from the living room.

If I’m recalling correctly the wall art above the fireplace below is just a copy of a work done by Margaret Macdonald. I think the originals deteriorated a lot over the years.

If you happen to be visiting Glasgow the Hunterian is a great place to see C.R. Mackintosh’s designs and if you have the time you might want to see his wonderful House for an Art Lover which was not built in his lifetime, but ony fairly recently to his plans. It’s situated in Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.

The Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

Posted on 5 May 2024 by Katrina

Last week we had a couple of days away over in the west of Scotland, and on one of the days we took the train to Glasgow, something that Jack used to do on a daily basis and I did at least once a week, it was a bit of a nostalgia trip, despite the trains being completely different. Anyway, we were aiming for The Willow Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street. They were designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, they had been fairly recently refurbished, and have now been taken over by the National Trust for Scotland.

As you can see from the photo below, the pedestrianised area of the street is having work done on it at the moment, the whole place is a mess and as usual there didn’t seem to be any actual work going on, you have to be quite determined to reach the tea room!

We were sitting right at the window but as you can see from the photo below they have it screened by curtains so you don’t see people going past, and they can’t see in. It was a very busy Friday lunchtime so the place was packed downstairs, but the food was good.

The staff must be well used to people going around taking photos of the decor, as nobody batted an eyelid when Jack did that. I love the details, Mackintosh was quick to give his wife Margaret Macdonald the credit for designing and working many of the textiles that feature in ‘his’ work

In the 1970s and 80s the tea rooom was shut and it was being used by Carrick the jewellery shop. They specialised in silver jewellery which was inspired by Mackintosh’s designs. It was more successful than many others and nowadays you can still buy some of the jewellery on Ebay and in ‘antique’ shops. There is an awful lot of ‘Mockintosh’ stuff around though which isn’t so pleasing to the eye – or my eye anyway.

Have you ever been in a tea room which actually had a bell on the table to summon assistance? Everyone was very attentive so they weren’t really necessary. Mind you I didn’t hear one actually being used!

The photos above and below are of the second floor room which wasn’t being used at the time, it’s a sort of gallery and you can look down to the ground floor from there. There is another floor above that one which I suspect is used for special occasions like weddings – maybe.

Anyway, this visit was something that we had been planning to do for ages, then along came Covid and it was postponed yet again. We’ll go back for another visit sometime, the desserts were delicious!

Duke of Wellington in Glasgow

Posted on 31 January 2020 by Katrina

Wellington

As you can see the famous statue of the Duke of Wellington on his horse Copenhagen in Glasgow is today sporting an updated version of his more usual traffic cone hat. It’s a very sad day here in Scotland as we leave the European Union, hopefully it won’t be for long.

Glasgow Cathedral – St Mungo’s

Posted on 13 March 2019 by Katrina

I’m sure you know what it’s like – you rarely get around to visiting touristy places nearby and to be fair it’s donkey’s years since I’ve lived near Glasgow, but I did spend the first five years of my life there so it was about time I got around to visiting Glasgow Cathedral which is also called the High Kirk of Glasgow and has a Church of Scotland congregation. It’s the oldest cathedral on mainland Scotland and the oldest building in Glasgow. It dates from the late 12th century and is also known as St Mungo’s or St Kentigern’s (one and the same person). His tomb is in the crypt and the kirk features in Sir Walter Scott’s Rob Roy.

I was impressed with the building although lots of the windows are just plain diamond paned glass. Apparently in the 1800s the powers that were gave a German company the commission to renew the windows with stained glass at huge expense, but within just a few years the glass began to deteriorate badly. I suspect that Prince Albert had something to do with the work going to a German firm, he seems to have seen it as his mission in life to give his country of birth as much economic help as possible. I bet they didn’t get their money back either!

The stone rood screen below is apparently quite unique.

The ceiling is quite impressive.

The modern tapestries below are beautiful but the camera couldn’t do them justice.

The cathedral has a good atmosphere and there was also a very interesting photographic exhibition on when we were there. You can read more about the building here. I must admit though that to me it comes second to St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney which is stunning.

Glasgow’s coat of arms decorates the old lampost outside the cathedral.

There are stained glass windows in the cathedral, but I’ll keep them for another blogpost.

The Willow Tearooms, Glasgow

Posted on 11 March 2019 by Katrina

A couple of weeks ago we had to go over to the west of Scotland – all of about 75 miles from us here in the east. We were picking up a table we had bought on Gumtree, but before doing that we had a look at the cathedral – can you believe we had never visited Glasgow Cathedral before? I’ll blog about that visit soon. I’m a bit pushed for time tonight and it’s nearly my bedtime so I give you – The Willow Tearooms in Buchanan Street, Glasgow. While we were waiting for our coffee and cream/jam scones to arrive (we made them Cornish style of course) I took a few photos. Luckily by this time it was getting on for 5 pm so there weren’t many others partaking of a stylish rest and snack.

You have to walk through a gift shop to get into the lower tearoom (which is still upstairs, just not as high up as the other one) and the demi lune chair below is situated there. The woman on the till offered to take a photo of us both on the chair, but that would have hidden the whole shape of it so we politely declined.

The upper room is called The Chinese Tearoom, but whenever we go there it’s almost always closed already, maybe we should get there earlier. The loos are up that way though so we were able to take photos of the very different style. I love that vibrant colour.

The chair below stands on a mezzanine landing.

The alcove below shows some of the things available to buy.

If you want to see some photos from a previous visit have a look at this blogpost that Jack wrote a few years ago.

Christmas lights 2018

Posted on 3 January 2019 by Katrina

It’s the second of January but some of my neighbours have taken down their Christmas decorations already. Mind you those are the people who put up their decorations in mid November! I did manage to take some photos of the lights in a few of the places we visited pre-Christmas, below are the street lights in Dumbarton, the small town that I grew up in.

I must say that I was really impressd with the town’s efforts. I actually think that they’re the best ones I’ve seen for a long time. I’m fed up with just bright white lights that so many places seem to have opted for, the yellow and red fairly cheered the place up.

Tha lights of the “Artizan’ area (which by the way is NOT where the old Artizan was) aren’t quite so nice I think, but they’re better than nothing I suppose.

The permanent lights that enhance the old stone bridge below are atmospheric.

You can get an idea of what it looks like in daylight from the photo below.

In Glasgow George Square is the focus for the Christmas activities, in my young day that used to mean a nativity scene, but nowadays they plonk a fun fair on it. It was ‘sear your eye balls’ bright this year (2018).

West George Street in the Merchant City area was the place to go if you were looking for something a bit more elegant. The church doorway was flanked by two Christmas trees, it looked pretty in the distance anyway. The church (St George’s Tron) is actually in Nelson Mandela Place though, the first street named after him – long before he was released from prison.

And so went another year – in a flash!

Holmwood House – Glasgow

Posted on 28 November 2017 by Katrina

Last month we visited Holmwood House in Glasgow which is an Arts and Crafts property owned by the National Trust. It was designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson. It isn’t a massive house, just four bedrooms and over the years has been owned by various people, before the National Trust took it over a Roman Catholic convent inhabited it and they made some strange changes to some rooms, including installing ‘confessionals’ in the dining room! The National Trust is slowly putting the place back to how it looked in its glory days.

The hall walls have just recently been refurbished, all hand painted by four men apparently, I don’t know how they had the patience for that!

There are various designs of floor tiles that have withstood the years well.

There had been a private school in residence at one point and had damaged the lovely wooden flooring, all part of the building’s history now I suppose.

I’ve never seen a ceiling like the very ornate one on the oriel window of the drawing room below. It was designed so that the blinds and curtains are recessed behind it so you can’t see the top of them, very posh!

A close up of the window recess ceiling.

The colour scheme in the drawing room is certainly vibrant.

I have no idea why there’s a hallstand in the drawing room. Holmwood is still a work in progress.

The ceiling ‘rose’ in the midle of the drawing room ceiling is quite unusual, the actual ceiling is marbled, a paint effect I think. At first glance I thought they had had some water damage but phew, it’s meant to look like that.

I have quite a few more photos but that’ll do for now. I thought I’d already done a post about the outside of the house but apparently not.

Battlefield/Langside in Glasgow

Posted on 15 November 2017 by Katrina

One day last month we decided to travel to my beloved west of Scotland, all of seventy or so miles away from where we now live, but a miss is as good as a mile – as THEY say. We were aiming to visit Holmwood House, an Arts and Crafts house which is now owned by the National Trust. I’ll blog about that house sometime in the future.

On the way back from that part of Glasgow I mentioned to Jack that an ancestor of mine (great great uncle?) had designed a church and monument in Battlefield, which happened to be the area we were in, just as I said that we passed the monument which is now situated on a traffic roundabout! The Wiki link is wrong, I think that must have been his son who went to Australia.

It’s much bigger than I had imagined. The monument commemorates the Battle of Langside in 1568 which ended with the defeat of Mary, Queen of Scots’s army on that site, or certainly nearby. Alexander Skirving designed the monument in 1887 which was the 320th anniversary of her defeat.

As ever, we in Scotland are always in a bit of a quandary, would we have supported her or been on the other side? I suppose it depends which religious leader you favour – the Pope or John Knox. What a choice!

The church is now a bar and eatery, as so many of them are nowadays, if they haven’t been turned into flats or demolished. We had already had our lunch at Holmwood, we’ll try that restaurant out another time though.

After that the only thing I wanted to seek out was the street that I knew must be fairly nearby, named after the architect and also of course my own maiden name. With a bit of help from a passerby we found it, as you can see it’s typical Victorian tenements, it’s actually quite a long street the photo below is about half of it.

There are shops further up, including a bookshop which very annoyingly was closed for the day. It was a bit surreal to see my surname above a Chinese take away. They’re usually called Lucky Date, Golden Moon or some such thing, but I suppose it means that people won’t forget where it is! It’s something that Alexander Skirving could never have foretold when he designed buildings for this area.

There aren’t that many of us about with that Skirving surname, in fact I’ve never met any that I wasn’t related to. It appears in ancient Scottish surname books, but not in ordinary ones, and is of course originally Scandinavian/Viking. Some people like to think that in Britain our ancestors have been here forever and a day, but like everywhere else we’re just a bunch of mongrels when you get right down to it.

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Tag Archives: Glasgow