Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
5
gems of Charles Rennie Mackintosh - the
Scotland Street School
and the
House for
an Art Lover
.
As you move further south, inner-city decay fades into altogether gentler and more
salubrious suburbs, including
Queen's Park
, home to Scotland's national football
stadium,
Hampden Park
; Pollokshaws and the rural landscape of
Pollok Park
, which
contains two of Glasgow's major museums, the
Burrell Collection
and
Pollok House
;
and Cathcart, location of Alexander “Greek” homson's
Holmwood House
.
Scotland Street School Museum
225 Scotland St, opposite Shields Road underground station • Tues-Thurs & Sat 10am-5pm, Fri & Sun 11am-5pm • Free •
T
0141 287
0500,
W
glasgowlife.org.uk • Shields Road underground
he
Scotland Street School Museum
is another of the city's Charles Rennie Mackintosh
treasures. Mackintosh's distinctively designed school opened in 1906, and since its
closure in 1979 has been entertainingly refurbished to house a fascinating collection of
memorabilia related to classroom life. here are reconstructed classrooms from the
Victorian and Edwardian eras, World War II and the 1960s, as well as changing rooms,
a primitive domestic science room and re-creations of the school matron's sanatorium
and a janitor's lair. If you visit on a weekday during termtime, you may stumble on a
period lesson, local schoolkids struggling with their ink blotters, gas masks and archly
unsympathetic teachers, the faint smell of antiseptic conjuring up memories of scuffed
knees and playground tantrums.
House for an Art Lover
10 Bellahouston Park • Call for opening hours as the building may be closed to the public due to functions; café 10am-5pm • £4.50 •
T
0141 353 4770,
W
houseforanartlover.co.uk• Dumbreck station
Tucked just inside Bellahouston Park is Charles Rennie Mackintosh's
House for an Art
Lover
. Designed in 1901 for a German competition, it was not until 1996, after years
of detailed research, that the building was actually constructed and opened as a centre
for Glasgow School of Art postgraduate students, with a limited number of rooms
open to the public.
It's all quintessential Mackintosh, the exquisitely stylish and original nature of the
design making it hard to imagine it suffering the wear and tear of day-to-day life. On
the upper floor, you can watch a video giving a detailed account of the building's
history, then pass into the delicate
Oval Room
, intended for women to retire to after
dinner. From here, a small corridor leads into the main
hallway
, where massive
windows cast a cool light upon an area designed for large parties. In direct contrast, the
dazzling white
Music Room
has bow windows opening out to a large balcony, though
the garden view is marred by an artificial ski slope. he
Dining Room
is decorated with
darkened stained wood and enhanced by some beautiful gesso tiles.
On the ground floor, the
café
(see p.211) is particularly popular with locals on
Sunday mornings; there's an attractive menu, and it's open every day (even if the rest of
the house is closed to the public) and sometimes also in the evenings.
Hampden Park
Mount Florida • Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm • £6 •
T
0141 616 6139,
W
scottishfootballmuseum.org.uk • Trains from Central
station to Mount Florida
Just east of leafy Queen's Park, the floodlights and giant stands of Scotland's national
football stadium,
Hampden Park
, loom over the surrounding suburban tenements and
terraces. Home of Queen's Park Football Club, the fact that it's the venue for Scotland's
international fixtures and major cup finals makes it a place of pilgrimage for the
country's football fans. Regular
guided tours
offer the chance to see the changing
