A couple of days in Glasgow

 

I believe that I said this before but I didn't do well alone in the bigger cities.  That being said, I enjoyed what I was able to see of Glasgow.  It was an interesting city to me because up to this point all of the cities that I had been to celebrated their history and were very vocal about it, but as far as I could tell, you had to look really hard for Glasgow's history.  Not that it wasn't there, but it seemed to me that it celebrated being a more modern city, with all of the shopping and entertainment that you could find anywhere, than being a really old Scottish city with a very long history.



The new and old melding together to make a very interesting city.

 

It is amazing to think about but it is believed that Celtic druids were among the first identifiable religious tribes to inhabit the area and they most likely would have traded with the Romans who had a trading post in Cathures, the earlier name for Glasgow. In 143AD the Romans erected the turf-built Antonine Wall stretching from the Clyde to the Forth to separate Caledonia to the north from Britannia to the south, but the wall was soon abandoned.  In 380AD St Ninian, the great Christian missionary, passed through Cathures, but nothing is really known of that time other than he consecrated a burial ground.  In the 6^th century however, St Kentigern settled in Glasgow (or Glas Cu, generally construed as “dear green place”) in 543AD.  It is believed that he had been exiled from Culross where his miracle powers had aroused jealousy among his monastic brothers.  In Glasgow, he established his Christian church on the banks of the Molendinar Burn, where Glasgow Cathedral now stands. Such was his great popularity among his ecclesiastical community he was named Mungo meaning “dear one”.  Legend has it St Mungo performed four miracles in Glasgow:

These 4 miracles are commemorated on the City of Glasgow’s coat of arms, depicting a tree with a bird perched on its branches and a salmon and a bell on either side.

 

 

There's the tree that never grew,

There's the bird that never flew,

  There's the fish that never swam,

There's the bell that never rang.

 

The Bird - Mungo restored life to the pet robin of Saint Serf, which had been killed by some of his fellow classmates, hoping to blame him for its death.

The Tree - Mungo had been left in charge of a fire in Saint Serf's monastery. He fell asleep and the fire went out. Taking branches from a tree, he restarted the fire.

The Bell - the bell is thought to have been brought by Mungo from Rome. It was said to have been used in services and to mourn the deceased. The original bell no longer exists, and a replacement, created in the 1640s, is now on display in Glasgow.

The Fish - refers to the story about Queen Languoreth of Strathclyde who was suspected of infidelity by her husband. King Riderch demanded to see her ring, which he claimed she had given to her lover. In reality the King had thrown it into the River Clyde. Faced with execution she appealed for help to Mungo, who ordered a messenger to catch a fish in the river. On opening the fish, the ring was miraculously found inside, which allowed the Queen to clear her name.

Little is known of the city’s history after Mungo died on 13 January 603 until the later part of the 12^th century.    By that time Glasgow’s population had reached around 1,500, making it an important settlement. In 1175, Bishop Jocelyn secured a charter from King William making Glasgow a burgh of barony, opening up its doors to trade. In 1238 work began on Glasgow Cathedral, symbolising the city’s growing role as a major ecclesiastical centre.  It went from a Catholic rule to a Protestant one in 1560 where it then stayed under Protestant rule until William of Orange's invasion of England in late 1688. The failure of the Scottish bishops to pledge William their support heralded the end of episcopal governance and, in 1690, Glasgow's town council finally gained the right to elect the burgh's provost and bailies. Glasgow had finally ceased to be a dependent medieval burgh and had become an early-modern town with full rights of self-governance. During the Industrial revolution

Glasgow went from being a small merchant town into a industrial city, growing rapidly in size to become the powerhouse of the Scottish economy. Industrial and technical innovation fostered this expansion and many people were attracted to the city in search of work, not just from rural Scotland but also from England and Ireland. Such rapid expansion inevitably created social problems and accompanying political tension. These came to a head in the so-called Radical War of 1820 and the events leading up to the Great Reform Act of 1832. 

 

By the end of the 19th century Glasgow School of Art was one of the leading art academies in Europe and after early success in the fine arts, the late 1890s saw Glasgow’s reputation in architecture and the decorative arts reach an all time high. At the very heart of this success was a talented young architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh whose reputation was to quickly spread beyond his native city and who, over a century later, is still regarded as the father of Glasgow Style.

The Lighthouse houses the Scotland Center for Architecture and Design.  The water tower was  designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The centrepiece of the Royal Exchange Square is the Royal Exchange, designed by David Hamilton. The building now houses Glasgow's Museum of Modern Art.

 

 

 

In George Square I found the Glasgow City Chambers dating from 1888. The competition to design the new civic headquarters was won by the Paisley born architect, William Young. The extravagant Baroque inspired design features numerous cupolas of different sizes situated on all of the highly decorated facades. There are also carved reliefs and statues celebrating the perceived greatness of Queen Victoria's reign over the British Empire.

 

Statues of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert also found in George Square.

  

The St George's Tron Church in Glasgow, Scotland, commonly known simply as "The Tron",  is a Presbyterian church in Glasgow's city centre, located in Nelson Mandela Place near Queen Street Station.

 

 Nelson Mandela Place was originally St George's Place. Glasgow City Council signalled its support for the campaign to free Nelson Mandela by renaming the street in honour of the political prisoner in 1986.

 

The rest of these pictures are just ones that I took on my walking tour of Glasgow.