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Showing posts from December, 2020
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  Archiepiscopal palace.  ( or Archbishops Castle) Glasgow This venerable relic of the “ olden time,” was the town residence of the Archbishops of Glasgow,for many centuries the proud scene of their feudal grandeur and magnificence. It stood immediately to the west of the Cathedral, which is situated in an elevated part of the Town. The castle stood where the royal infirmary stands today. During the turbulent period of the feudal ages, when 'power'was the only law, and the mandates of governments were but little attended to, because they seldom could be enforced; when every feudal lord sought the preservation of his own rights, and, so far as he could, the redressing of his own supposed wrongs, the great objects to be attained in domestic architecture, were strength, and the power of resistance. The clergy, during these ages, notwithstanding their professions of piety and humility, were as ambitious, and fond of power as the most rude and warlike of the iron-clad barons; and no
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 # 10 View of Pear tree well From Views and Notices of Glasgow in Former times, by William Simpson, 3 scrapbooks. n.p. 1871 This view looks at Pear Tree Well, on the banks of the Kelvin. Regarded as a popular area for picnics, it never possessed any pear trees. It was eventually incorporated into the Botanic Gardens at the end of the 19th century. The river Kelvin rises in the Kilsyth Hills and flows past Kirkintilloch and Maryhill, through the Botanic Gardens and joins the Clyde at Partick. It was crossed by a ford until the first bridge was built in 1601. Shipyards were developed on each bank.
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  A Plan for George Square  From Prints Collection held in History and Glasgow Room This is a plan of the proposed building which was to house the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and be built in George Square. The building was to contain several galleries for paintings and sculptures as well as a lecture hall, school and a library. The first society for art was founded in 1821 by Alexander Findlay, a print seller, who exhibited from his shop. After it failed several other societies were started, which also failed. The Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts was eventually established in 1861.
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  St Mungo (4) Story of the mound of Dovehill DURING the sojourn of St. Mungo in Wales, which is said to have lasted for eleven years, civiI war raged in the kingdom of Cumbria, or Strathclyde; but a decisive battle at Arthuret, on the borders of Dumfriesshire and Cumberland, or, as some think, at Airdrie, settled the dispute in favour of Roderick the Bountiful, who, it is said, had been baptised by St. Patrick in Ireland.  One of the first acts of his reign was to send to St. Mungo in Wales, praying him most urgently to return. The saint complied with his request, and his re-entry was one of triumphal rejoicing.  Either at the time of his return, or shortly after it, St. Mungo was preaching to the people on a plain, but as he could not he seen or heard by a large portion of the multitude, he manifested his miraculous power by causing the ground on which he stood to rise up to a mound, and he then continued his remarks, to the better edification of his hearers.  Tradition has it that t
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  # 9 Gallowgate at Kent street, Glasgow A photograph by Thomas Annan of Glasgow (1829-1887) This view is taken from the centre of Gallowgate just before Kent Street, looking west. This is the fringe of the area that was due for demolition. Most of the buildings are solid tenements built within the previous thirty years. On the right are several people watching the camera. They stand on the pavement in front of several shops or at the entrance to a close. Above the shops, there is a prominent sign for 'John MacKay House Painter'. Albumen print, from collodion negative. These photographs were taken for the City Improvements Trust who, in the 1860s, planned to demolish the worst of the decayed city centre. They were published at different dates and in different formats by the city and by Annan's firm.
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  What's in a (street) name? The following is not a complete street name directory of old Glasgow. Abercrombie Street. See Bellgrove.  Adam's Court. Built subsequently to Jamaica Bridge by John Adam (1767-1772?). See Jamaica Bridge John Adam built a number of antique-looking buildings in Argyle Street He was also the contractor for the first Jamaica Street footbridge (1768).  Adelphi Street. The Clyde frontage was called Adelphi in honour of the Brothers Hutcheson .  Albion Street Opened 1806. See Greyfriars Wynd (North Albion Street), and Grammar School Wynd (North Albion Street). Albion Street Chapel-the minister in 1794 was the Rev. James MCLeod.  Anderston. Village was formed in 1725 by Anderson of Stobcross upon one of his unproductive farms. Bishop Street, Anderston-James Monteith of this street was the first who warped a muslin web in Scotland. Long before steam mills were introduced into Scotland for spinning cotton, in 1792, Mr. Monteith purchased "bird nest"
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  St Mungo (3) St. mungo's Journey to Glasgow.   HOLDING on his way, Kentigern, '' on the same night in which he departed from St. Serf, was lodged, at a place supposed to be Carnwath, in the house of Fergus, an aged Christian, who, Simeon-like, is said to have received a "revelation that in the presence of the holy Kentigern he should pass away from the world. And when be was dead the blessed Kentigern . . . laid his body on a waggon, to which he yoked unbroken oxen, with no one to guide them: and so, following the waggon, he arrived at a place which is called Glasgow, where he buried the body, and where, serving God, he, by divine revelation, took up his abode."  The body of Fergus was buried beneath some ancient trees, near a forsaken cemetery that had been consecrated by St. Ninian. On that very spot it is said was afterwards reared the transept of our noble Cathedral, and the aisle or crypt of which was dedicated to Fergus. St. Mungo and King Morken  MORKEN,
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 #8 Ladywell St Glasgow (1849) From Relics of Ancient Architecture and other Picturesque Scenes in Glasgow, by Thomas Fairbairn, Glasgow 1849 This view looks along Ladywell Street to the Cathedral. This street stood in an area known as 'The Butts'. It was also known as 'Hangman's Brae'. It was in this area in 1787 that the Calton Weavers, during their strike, fought with the military. Dedicated to St Kentigern, or St Mungo as he is known, there has probably been an ecclesiastical building on this site since before 603 A.D., when Mungo was buried here. The earliest part of the present building dates from 1197 when Jocelyn was Bishop.
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    POVERTY IN 19th CENTURY SCOTLAND  This engraving from the 1830s shows the Town's Hospital and Poorhouse, built in 1733 on Great Clyde Street  The economic and social changes ushered in by industrialisation dramatised the problem of poverty in Scotland by concentrating it in large pockets within the rapidly growing urban centres. The boom and bust economics of the free market added to the problem as it brought with it periodic mass unemployment which in a pre-welfare society left thousands of workers in poverty. The extent of the social devastation of mass unemployment in Victorian Scotland can be grasped from a comment by the Provost of Paisley made at the height of the 1842 depression: "Unemployment was the rule .... few workmen of Paisley were employed: they were broken up and found to be wandering about in every town in the country, begging for bread, independent of those thousands whom they had at home supported by charity".  Obviously the periodic occurrence of m
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  Trongate and the surrounding area. AT the time when King William authorised Bishop Joceline of Glasgow to have a Burgh that descriptive term had lost much of its original signification of a Fort, under the protection of which a market could be safely held. It had rather come to imply a market town, equipped with all the usual trading and judicial accessories. In accordance, therefore, with the practice of the period the privileges conferred by the Glasgow charter relate specially to a weekly market and the customs derivable from it. By one of William's statutes it was commanded that all merchandise should be presented at the market and market crosses of the King's burghs and there offered to the merchants, the custom dues being paid to the King.- Each royal burgh had its shire or district, the produce of which must come to its market ; and the Bishop's charter was granted for the purpose of affording corresponding benefits to him and his successors, as territorial lords.
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  St Kentigern's shrine The cathedral was the principal church of the diocese. The choir for the clergy and presbytery for the high altar are in the eastern limb, and the nave for the layfolk is in the western limb. Between the two parts are the transepts. However, this cathedral, exceptionally, has a vaulted crypt and transepts which do not project beyond the main body of the building. The crypt housed the tomb of St. Mungo, or Kentigern. Enclosed by Gothic arches, the tomb was placed at the centre of the crypt. Although the relics of the saint were removed in the Middle Ages, the crypt provides an area of rest and contemplation. A place of pilgrimage, King Edward I made offering of seven shillings at the great altar and 'ad feretrum Kentigerni' in the late summer of 1301.
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  # 7 Moothill, Glasgow  c1150 Glasgow burgesses are attending their annual meeting to discuss the affairs of the Common Land on the Moothill, near the first Cathedral. Some of the common people have arrived also, apparently, to air a grievance. Other such meetings were held at Springhill near Cowcaddens and the Moothill near the Old Green, down by the Clyde.
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  Glasgow - A very long time ago The earliest records of Glasgow are of a maritime order. Down among the alluvial clay of the banks of the Clyde, ancient canoes, or " dug-out " boats, have from time to time been discovered. How long it is since these were deposited it is not easy to say, but very great changes must have taken place on the face of the country since then. Hugh Miller says : " Where the city of Glasgow now stands, three ancient boats one of which is in the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh, and another in the Andersonian Museum(  it fell into decline through lack of funding, and when pressure on space increased with the formation of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College in 1887, the major Zoological and Ethnological Collections were given to the Hunterian Museum and the Andersonian Museum closed)   have been dug up since the year 1781 ; the last not many years ago. One of the number was found a full quarter of a mile from the Clyde, and about twent
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  Glasgow fair 1825 from the ' Northern looking glass '  The illustration is from 'Northern Looking-Glass' (formally the Glasgow looking glass)Vol. 1. No 4, which was printed and published by John Watson, Lithographic Printers, 169 George Street, Glasgow and cost 1s 6d (15.5 pence). This illustration shows the hive of activity which surrounded the Glasgow Fair during the early part of the 19th century. Initially held on Glasgow Green the Fair was a major event in for the city. The Fair not only brought traders and merchants to the city, but also people from far and wide would come to experience the bustle of activity and to see the various entertainments on offer such as the Penny Geggies.
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 # 6 St Mungo's Tomb, Glasgow Glasgow Cathedral. Crypt. St Mungo's Tomb A view from within a cathedral undercroft with a series of vaulted arches supported by compound piers, amongst which are four with decorated capitals standing at the corners of a section of raised floor. The cathedral stands on the foundations of two earlier churches. It dates from the 13th century and is dedicated to St Kentigern or Mungo, whose tomb is sited in Joceline's Crypt. After the Reformation and until the turn of the 19th century, the crypt (known as Joceline's Crypt) was used as the parish church by the congregation of the Outer High parish.
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 St Mungo (2) Story of the Robin.  The following is dedicated to my wee pal Zac THE other boys who were being brought up and educated along with St. Mungo by St. Serf are said to have been jealous of the love shown to him by their master, and to have done what they could to do him mischief. One story tells that a favourite tame robin of St. Serf was by accident killed by one or more of his youthful disciples, who laid the blame on Kentigern; whereon he took the bird in his hand, and having made over it the sign of the cross, its life was instantly restored, and it flew chirping or carolling to its master. This is the famous "bird that never flew" of the rhyme on the armorial insignia of the city of St. Mungo.  Story of the frozen branches.  IN the refectory, it is stated, there was a fire which had been sent down thither from heaven, and which st. Serf's disciples watched by turns in the night, one after another, that it might not be suffered to go out. On a certain night
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  St Mungo (1) The saint is said to have been born about A.D. 527, and to have been the son of Ewen ap Urien, a prince of Strathclyde, his mother being Thenaw, a daughter of Loth, King of Northumbria, which kingdom then extended along the eastern coast, from the Firth of Forth, or Scots Sea, as it was long named, to the Firth of Tyne. The mother of St. Thenaw is said to have been either an aunt or half-sister of the famous King Arthur. The saint was thus cousin or niece to King Arthur, and sister to the "gentle Oawaine," so renowned as one of the chief knights of the Round Table.  ST. THENAW, or Tennoch (latterly corrupted into Enoch), is said to have been a. believer in the Christian faith, but not baptised until after the birth of her famous son. Her earnest longing is said to have been to preserve her virginity, and to dedicate her life to the service of the Church, but her semi-Pagan father insisted on her marrying the Prince of Strathclyde. Much obscurity rests on the ea