by John Thomson
I’m in Glasgow visiting relatives, recalled to the city by blood ties and circumstance. Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city, a little shabby in parts I must admit, its once busy dockyards replaced by a shopping mall, an amusement centre and a transportation museum. Thankfully, many of Glasgow’s magnificent sandstone buildings remain intact, a reminder of its better days when the city was flush with pride and Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh was at the top of his game. The Mackintosh story, like the city itself, is a bittersweet tale of success, decline and ultimate redemption. Not familiar with the name? You’ll recognize his furniture. His straight, high-backed chairs are cultural icons often associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement and although I’m not a fan of his chairs – too rigid for me – I have to acknowledge their importance.
I start my Glasgow tour on Sauchiehall (pronounced Sock-ee-hall) Street and work my way west. Glasgow converted its two main downtown thoroughfares, Buchanan and Sauchiehall Streets into pedestrian malls years ago and getting around the central core is a pedestrian’s dream. A gentle rain sprinkles the pavement but as soon as it starts, it stops. I’m barely wet. I climb Scott Street to the Glasgow School of Art considered the pinnacle of Mackintosh’s architectural career. Completed in 1909, it’s an imposing structure with a domineering command of its surroundings. It reminds me of a fortress. The western wall is tight and dense with narrow loopholes from which I imagine the inhabitants, if they were medieval archers, could shoot arrows if the city were under siege. The northern wall on the other hand has lots of large windows giving it an airy feel and letting in lots of light too. After all, this is an art school. Form follows function.
I saunter inside. “Where dae ye think yer goin’?” yells the security guard. This is functioning workspace and I didn’t see the sign that says tourists must report to the front office for an escorted tour. My bad. I did manage to steal some furtive glances, though, during my brief and illegal visit. I see that Mackintosh designed the School’s interiors as well, repeating his favourite themes, squares and rectangles in the light fixtures and wall decorations. His wife Margaret, an artist in her own right, contributed Art Nouveau floral tiles. (A major fire closed interior tours shortly after I left Scotland but the building can still be seen from the street while it’s being rebuilt).
Mackintosh was not only an architect but a designer too and the original Willow Tea Room on Sauchiehall is a prime example of his handiwork. Recruited by local businesswoman and teetotaller Catherine Cranston in 1896 to dress up her establishments, Mack designed everything – tables, chairs, room dividers, wall decorations, napkins and cutlery. The Tea Room, one of two in the city, has been preserved as a Mackintosh museum with the original stained glass door and replica furniture and yes, they still serve tea. Angularity is the prevailing theme – there are those high backed chairs again – and everything conforms to Mackintosh’s singular, unifying concept.
I jump on the subway, the third oldest in the world I’m told after London and Budapest. The cars are tiny compared to North American stock. “Don’t call it the Tube,” my relatives told me. “You’re not in London and it will only tick off the locals.” Glasgow takes pride in differentiating itself from England. In Glasgow, the underground is not The Underground.
I get off at the Kelvinhall stop and walk to the Hunterian Art Gallery on the grounds of the University of Glasgow. Mack’s 1906 residence or at least parts of it – the hall, dining room, living room and the main bedroom – have been moved from their original location and reassembled here for public display. It’s breathtaking in its simplicity. Mackintosh and Margaret have designed everything themselves right down to the fireplace decorations. They even knocked down interior walls to create more space, a radical innovation at the turn of the nineteenth century. Sunlight bounces off the stark white walls accentuating the open plan. The angular motif that I first saw at the Willow Tea Room, lots of right angles and variations on the square, is repeated in the floor, the furniture and the wall decorations. Everything is co-ordinated. A bit too co-ordinated. I feel like I’m in a museum piece, which of course I am, and long for the remains of a half-eaten breakfast on the dining room table or a pile of dirty clothes at the foot of those oh-so-perfect matching beds. I wonder if Mack and his wife ever felt the same way. Probably not. I have to admit the duo were ahead of their time though. Their turn-of-the-century digs look like they belonged in the 1930’s.
My last visit takes me to the Lighthouse, a gallery and design incubator originally built for a local newspaper and now repurposed as Scotland’s National Centre for Architecture and Design. It’s here that I find the completion of the Mackintosh story. The entire third floor is devoted to his life and his works.
I learn that young Mackintosh was quite the celebrity when he completed the Glasgow School of Art in 1909 but when he left his employers, Honeyman and Keppie, to strike out on his own, tastes changed and his business faltered. He and his wife Margaret retreated to London to concentrate on textile design. And when that didn’t pan out the couple eventually retired to southern France where Mackintosh renounced architecture entirely and spent the rest of his life painting watercolours.
Mackintosh returned to the UK in 1927 and died the following year of cancer. For awhile it looked like the world had forgotten the innovative Scot but in 1973 a local non-profit society was created to maintain his buildings and recognize his accomplishments. Thanks to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society many of his buildings were preserved and his reputation solidified.
As I board the plane to return home, I ponder the Mackintosh phenomenon. Yes, his buildings are stunning. Built to withstand the Scottish climate, they’re solid, substantial structures in contrast to those flouncy neo-classical buildings in vogue at the time. Scholars have called the style Scottish Baronial, tying Mackintosh and his ideas to the Scottish Renaissance of the early twentieth century when there was a creative surge in Scottish arts and letters. Perhaps he deserves his fame because he stripped away superfluous decoration in favour of detail that complemented the building’s integrity, paving the way for Modernism. Perhaps it’s because he involved himself in total design – integrating architecture with wall treatments, light fixtures and furniture. Mack pre-dated future “starchitects” like Frank Gehry by decades. Perhaps it’s all of these things, a combination of accomplishments both historic and aesthetic.
I went to Glasgow to visit relatives, not to bone up on architecture but I’m glad I wandered down the Mackintosh trail. I arrived a novice, barely familiar with his work, and left a believer, a convert to the cult of Mackintosh. But I still don’t like those stiff-looking chairs.
If You Go:
All things Mackintosh can be found at www.glasgowmackintosh.com. The site lists Mackintosh buildings, attractions and events.
I stayed at the four-star Millennium Hotel opposite Glasgow Square in the centre of town.
You can log onto Visit Scotland for links to other accommodations as well.
Loch Lomond and Glengoyne Whisky Distillery Half Day Tour from Glasgow
Photo credits:
Glasgow School of Art #1 by John a s / CC BY-SA
All other photos by John Thomson:
Central Glasgow, George Street
Central Glasgow, Buchanan Street
Glasgow School of Art, northern facade
Glasgow School of Art, western facade
The Entrance to the Lighthouse
The iconic Mackintosh chair
Scottish-born John Thomson comes from a news and current affairs background. He writes for print, online and broadcast. A stickler for detail, he says “Braveheart” is an historical travesty. His forebearers never painted themselves blue nor flashed their buttocks in battle though he concedes Mel Gibson looked good in tartan.
If you love Wuthering Heights devoutly, the words “bed and breakfast” can inspire fear. Would the broad beamed ceilings and mossy walls be protected, or would they be swallowed up into an upscale conversion? Bronte’s “Thrushcross Grange”, or as it is known in reality, Ponden Hall, is exactly as its hero and heroine would have it.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take your bags,” he said as he stepped out the front door. I ushered my daughter into the long, narrow hallway lined with wellies and jackets. It is still a family home. We entered the sitting room to the right and met the home’s other half- Julie Akhurst, a warm and inviting hostess bearing tea and cookies.
We were upgraded you to the Heaton Room, the first of many kindnesses Our room was as if a home of its own. Two twin beds were at opposite ends of the room while a large four-poster graced the interior wall. Stephen had built a warm fire in the hearth in front of the chairs and sofa, and the ceiling reached up to a height that made the room grander than a suite. It was quiet enough to hear the cows chewing the grass outside our window, and when we went to bed, a slight wind rattled the windows occasionally, but seemed to promise calm.
Despite the protective comfort of our warm duvets, we eagerly came down for traditional British breakfast. The Akhurst-Brown family invited us to join them at dinner because it would be late for us to take a taxi to the local pub the previous night and Julie proved she is an excellent cook with a delicious squash soup. Julie came in and out of the kitchen juices, fresh eggs, and warm homemade bread. Stephen pulled two large pillows in front of the stone fireplace so my daughter could sprawl out on the stone floors and watch cartoons. Listening to the family move behind us in the daily lives added more warmth to the room, aside from their heated stone floors and their giant Aga stove, than I ever could have imagined. Indeed it felt as if the haunted souls of Wuthering Heights had been set free.
Stretching eighty miles from the natural beauty of Solway Firth on the west coast to Newcastle in the east, it was built around 124 AD on the orders of Emperor Hadrian. He decided his Empire needed securing and he gave the order to build a wall across the northern frontier. The Wall took six years to complete and it’s thought to have begun as a rampart of earthwork and turf and then later replaced by local stone.
A splendid view of the Wall is seen at Housesteads in Northumberland at a section between Walltown Crags where it undulates for several miles over Whin Still ridge. I loved to ramble on top of the Wall itself where it is eight to ten feet wide and over ten feet high. I would stand alone on one of the Wall’s highest vantage points and look down on some of the most spectacular scenery in England, and immerse myself with thoughts of Roman legions patrolling where my own feet were firmly planted. I could envision them toiling to pull earth, cut turf, and lay stones, hewed, hacked and sawed and placed one by one to strengthen and form this massive barrier their Emperor had ordered.
When I walked I could envision the Roman soldiers marching to protect this well fortified defence. Forts were built every five miles and small settlements for housing sprang up, well equipped to provide shelter and storage. In this wild outpost of the Roman Empire, amidst the clamour of every tongue and the practice of every cult, the legions gathered together for training, sometimes to meet British tribes on the other side in friendly chatter or more often in deadly strife.
Few facilities existed then and I continued my trudge over undulating hills, past a tiny wood and down a small valley, dotted with grass chewing sheep with the occasional osprey swooping down to grab an unsuspecting field mouse, to the hamlet of Once Brewed where The Twice Brewed Inn served good hearty northern fare. Feet sore, body aching, a hot home cooked meal washed down with a local light ale, and I was in my heaven on earth and I have never found anywhere better. Forgotten was children’s writer Beatrix Potter’s Cumbrian house, Hill Top, where she created her characters Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle Duck. It would be seen another day. William Wordsworth, inspired by the same lakes and mountains, could also be remembered another time, and Dove Cottage on Lake Grasmere, where he lived for over fifty years, could be re-visited. But, during my allotted time with Hadrian and his Wall, I had deliberately stayed remote with my thoughts midst Nature’s grandeur and Rome’s remnants from empire building, aware that, just around a corner in a lane in Once Brewed, I had left a car which would transport me down the road back into Yorkshire and family happenings, where tranquility, dreams and contemplation would be put on hold.
The remainder of the city sprawls away behind and up the hills though nowhere is terribly far from the spread of farmland, coast and the wild. Sheep can be spotted grazing upon the hills to the south overlooking the old narrow port of Douglas, at the mouth of the Douglas River, hemmed in by solid rock breakwater walls. Low tide levels are readily earmarked on the sides of the piers where craft lay drunkenly upon the mud flats waiting for the inflow to sober them up.
Despite its relegation to third place tourism and its legacy are far from relics.
Minutely visible in the mirrors is the Edwardian Era Gaiety Theatre; a proud heritage building facing on to the main promenade with the ornate exterior a valid promise of what awaits inside. Opening in 1900, a year short of Queen Victoria’s passing, its rich upholstered seating with upper balconies, side theatre boxes and the expressive faces of cherubs and their statuesque kin holds silent witness to the many scenes on and off stage that have transpired over its many years. We were favoured there with a rousing rendition of Little Shop of Horrors so well presented I was surprised to discover the cast were not professionals. The sense of timelessness about watching a performance in this heritage theatre, where my ancestors had most likely sat as well, was as personal as it was poignant.
On the hills above is the must see Heritage of Man National Museum. Housed in its historic quarters, faced with ornate Celtic artistic adornments, its doors open to a chronological history which comes alive in dioramas, authentic artifacts, interactive displays which encapsulates the national story of the Isle of Man and its long history from prehistory to modern. Step into a sod roofed Celtic great house to hear a grandfather passing on to an enthralled child, a cozy home with common conversation between a Manx wife and Norse husband and displays enlivening images of the heady days of Edwardian era tourism. Gawk, amazed, under the expansive skeleton of a great deer which once roamed the isle.There are the makings of a long afternoon walking these halls.
With that, he presented his infant son, born just a few days earlier.
Ruthin Castle stands on a ridge overlooking the beautiful Vale of Clwyd. It was the castle that gave the town its name, for it’s a corruption of Welsh words meaning ‘red fort’, referring to the sandstone from which it was built. The castle, which Dafydd built in 1277, is in ruins now, destroyed in the reign of Charles II.
During this conflict, another of Dafydd’s strongholds fell. This was at nearby Denbigh. The current stone castle was built after the stronghold fell, as part of Edward’s ‘Iron Ring’ around North Wales. Henry de Lacy was commissioned by the King to build it, and was also granted a Borough Charter to establish the surrounding town of Denbigh … which also took its name from the castle; it’s a corruption of the Welsh for ‘little fort’.
In the 15th Century, the castle was besieged twice, but held out, first, against the rebels of Owain Glyndwr then against the Lancastrians in the War of the Roses.
Ruthin Castle has connections with more modern Princes of Wales too. The ‘Prince of Wales’ suite and ‘Bertie’s Restaurant’ at the hotel are named after Albert Edward (later, of course, King Edward VII) who visited the house frequently in Victorian times … because he was having an affair with Patsy, the owner’s wife!
