Glasgow - George Square and the Merchant City Travel Guides | Glasgow | Sub Regions | Glasgow - George Square and the Merchant City

The heart of modern Glasgow is George Square – which makes it the obvious starting point for a tour of the city centre. The tourist information centre is also located here, on the south side of the square.

The grid of streets to the east of George Square, stretching as far as the High Street, form the Merchant City, where the Tobacco Lords built their magnificent Palladian mansions. They made Glasgow the most important tobacco trading city in Europe and can also take the credit for it being one of the lung cancer capitals of the world by the mid-20th century. The Tobacco Lords, however, gave way to King Cotton, and by 1820, the area between Candleriggs and Miller Street was largely taken up by the textile industry.

The Merchant City’s days as a desirable residential district were numbered when fashionable merchants were lured west by the fine new houses being built on Blytheswood Hill. Banks, markets and warehouses all followed and by the mid-19th century the city’s financial heart had been transplanted into the West End. The Merchant City became a wholesale area, largely neglected and under threat of postwar high-rise housing development. Luckily, it escaped, and the return of Glasgow’s concert hall to Candleriggs saw the beginning of the regeneration of this area.

Money has been poured into the restoration of its 18th century warehouses and homes in an attempt to revitalize and regenerate the city’s old historic core. Though many of the buildings are little more than façades, the investment has succeeded in attracting expensive designer clothes shops and a plethora of stylish bistros, cafés and bars, which are packed with the city’s young professionals and media types. It’s a very pleasant and interesting area to explore, with the advantage that when all that neoclassical architecture gets too much, you can pop into one of the trendy café-bars for some light relief.

Sights

George Square

There are free guided tours of the City Chambers, T 0141-287 2000, Mon-Fri at 1030 and 1430. Entry to Merchant’s House by appointment only, T 0141-221 8272. Free.

George Square was named after George III and laid out in 1781. For several years it was not much more than a watery patch of ground where horses were taken to be slaughtered and puppies to be drowned. The plan was to make it an upmarket, elegant square with private gardens at its centre. However, many of the buildings (designed by the Adam brothers) were never built, while the gardens didn’t last long as Glaswegians objected to such an obvious display of privilege and ripped the railings down in disgust. The square only became the heart of the city when the council decided to make it the location for the City Chambers – the most visible symbol of Glasgow’s position as Second City of the Empire.

Although there’s a statue of Burns in the square, the poet did not have very strong links with Glasgow. On the few times he did come to the city he seemed to have gone shopping – buying, on various visits, some books, some cocoa, and some black silk for his wife. Other statues which adorn the square are those of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Robert Peel and James Watt, while the Greek Doric column is dedicated to Walter Scott (1837).

The Square is surrounded by fine civic buildings, most notable of which is the grandiose City Chambers, which fills the east side, a wonderful testament to the optimism and aspiration of Victorian Glasgow. It was designed in the Italian Renaissance style by William Young and the interior is even more impressive than its façade. The imposing arcaded marble entrance hall is decorated with elaborate mosaics and a marble staircase leads up to a great banqueting hall with a wonderful arched ceiling, leaded glass windows and paintings depicting scenes from the city’s history. One wall is covered by a series of murals by the Glasgow Boys. On the northwest corner of George Square, opposite Queen Street Station, is another fine building, the Merchants’ House, now home to Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. The interior is worth a look as it boasts some beautiful stained-glass windows and chocolate-brown wood panelling.

Queen St, T 0141-229 1996, http://www.glasgowmuseums.com. Mon-Thu and Sat 1000-1700, Fri and Sun 1100-1700. Free.

Just to the south of George Square, facing the west end of Ingram Street, is Royal Exchange Square, which is almost completely filled by the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) – yet another example of the city’s penchant for setting major public buildings within built-up squares. The building dates from 1778, when it was built as the Cunninghame Mansion, home to one of Glasgow’s wealthy Tobacco Lords. It passed to the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1817 and 10 years later the magnificent portico was added to the front and the building then became the Royal Exchange, the city’s main business centre. Following a stint as a telephone exchange in the 1920s, it latterly became the local public library, until 1996 when the magnificent barrel-vaulted interior was converted to house one of the city’s newest, and most controversial art venues, drawing the ire of many a critic for its unashamed eclecticism and populism.

The gallery features contemporary works by artists from around the world, displayed on three themed levels: the Earth Gallery on the ground floor; the Water Gallery; and the Air Gallery. It’s a bold, innovative art space, making excellent use of the original interior. The works you can see are varied and include paintings by Peter Howson, the Imperial War Museum’s war artist in Bosnia, photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Beryl Cook’s jolly work By the Clyde. There’s also a top-floor café, with great views. In front of the gallery is an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington. The Duke can often be seen wearing a traffic cone on his head at a jaunty angle, placed there by over refreshed locals or by students (what is it with undergraduates and traffic cones?). The cone is there so often – and has featured in so many photographs – that the Duke now looks undressed without it.

158 Ingram St, T 0141-552 8391, http://www.nts.org.uk. Mon-Sat 1000-1700. Free.

This is a distinguished Georgian building which is now the National Trust for Scotland’s regional headquarters. It was built by David Hamilton in 1805 in neoclassical style with a traditional Scottish ‘townhouse’ steeple. It was once home to the Scottish Educational Trust, a charitable institution founded by the 17th century lawyer brothers George and Thomas Hutcheson, which provided almshouses and schools for the city. Their statues gaze down towards the site of the original almshouse in Trongate. Upstairs is the ornate hall where you can see a film on Glasgow Style, the distinctive style of art that evolved from the works of artists such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Downstairs there’s an exhibition, also on Glasgow Style, featuring jewellery, textiles, furniture and prints by contemporary Glasgow artists and crafts people. All the works are for sale – for anything from a few pounds to several hundred pounds.

Hutcheson's Hall faces down the street, closing the vista. This is a feature of many of the Merchant City’s civic buildings.

The Italian Centre and The Corinthian

The Italian Centre: John St/Ingram St, T 0141-552 6099. The Corinthian: 191 Ingram St, T 0141-552 1101, http://www.g1group.co.uk.

Further west, between South Frederick Street and John Street, is the Italian Centre, restored by Page & Park from the former Bank of Scotland building, designed by William Burn in 1828. Famous for its designer-label shopping and the fact that it houses the first Versace store in the UK. Further west on Ingram Street is the Edwardian former Lanarkshire House, designed by John Burnet in 1876-79 as a refacing of David Hamilton’s former Union Bank (1841) which itself replaced Virginia Mansion. Its interior riches have been lovingly restored as The Corinthian, a stunning combination of bars, restaurants and meeting rooms. It is particularly impressive at night when floodlit.

85 Glassford St, T 0141-552 2418, http://www.bbnet.demon.co.uk/ thall. Free. Guided tours by appointment only.

The Trades Hall, designed by Robert Adam and built in 1794 as the headquarters of the city’s trade guilds, is Glasgow’s oldest secular building, and it still serves its original purpose. The Grand Hall is an impressive sight, lined with a Belgian silk tapestry depicting the work of a range of former city trades such as bonnetmakers (not much call for them nowadays) and cordiners (bootmakers).

Running south off Ingram Street is Virginia Street, whose name recalls Glasgow’s trading links with America. About halfway down, on the right heading towards Argyle Street, is the Virginia Galleries, the three-tiered arcade of the original Tobacco Exchange. Parallel to Virginia Street is Miller Street, originally a street of villas which was redeveloped as very grand textile and clothing factories and warehouses. Here you’ll find the Merchant City’s oldest surviving house (No 42), the Tobacco Merchant’s House. Designed by John Craig and dating from 1775, it was  restored by Glasgow Building Preservation Trust in 1995.

98 Ingram St.

East of Hutcheson’s Hall is Ramshorn Church, designed by Thomas Rickman in 1826 and one of the earliest examples of Gothic revival ecclesiastical architecture in Scotland. A plaque on the west side of the tower testifies to the church’s association with John MacDonald who became the first Prime Minister of Canada. The real delight here lies in the church graveyard, which is well worth a stroll around and offers a quiet picnic refuge in summer. Among the local worthies buried here are David Dale, the pioneering industrialist who helped build New Lanark and John Anderson, founder of Strathclyde University. Also here is the grave of Pierre Emile L’Angelier (his name is not on the tombstone), whose mysterious death led to one of Glasgow’s most famous trials.

Candleriggs

City Hall, T 0141-287 5024.

Head down Candleriggs, and you’ll pass the City Hall, dating from 1817. This was the first concert hall in the city built for public gatherings and musical performances, and was converted back to a concert hall following the destruction of St Andrew's Hall, which once stood on the site of the present-day Mitchell Library . The auditorium, designed by George Murray in 1840 (who also designed the Egyptian entrance on Albion Street), was built over the bazaar, itself designed by James Cleland in 1817. The Candleriggs frontage, with its Corinthian pillars, was designed by James Carrick in 1885. This block, bordered by Ingram Street, Bell Street, Candleriggs and Albion Street, was the site of many of the city’s  markets, including the fresh fruit and flower market, the cheese market and the charmingly-titled dead-meat market. The Bell Street entrance has been completely restored and revamped as a stylish new shopping and restaurant complex called Merchant Square.

At the foot of Candleriggs, look to the right across the Trongate to see the rather shabby exterior of the former Britannia Music Hall (1857). Originally the Panopticon, the music hall still survives on the upper floors of this faded Italianate beauty. It has been described by the UK Theatres Trust as the finest surviving early music hall theatre in the UK. It closed its doors in 1938, but during its lifespan has played host to the likes of Stan Laurel, Cary Grant and Harry Lauder.

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