Thomson Buildings


Adelaide, Australia
Airdrie, Lanarkshire
Annan, Dumfriesshire
Baillieston
Balfron and Holm of Balfron, Stirlingshire
Bearsden, Dunbartonshire
Blairmore, Argyllshire
Blantyre, Lanarkshire
Bothwell, Lanarkshire
Busby, Lanarkshire
Cathcart
Clynder
Cove, Dunbartonshire
Craigmore, Rothesay, Isle of Bute
Dalmuir, Dunbartonshire
Dullatur, Dunbartonshire
Dunoon
Duntocher, Dunbartonshire
Eastwood
Edinburgh
Glasgow
Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire
Hyderabad, Deccan, India
Johnstone, Renfrewshire
Kilcreggan, Dunbartonshire
Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire
Langbank, Renfrewshire
Lenzie, Dunbartonshire / Lanarkshire
London
Montrose, Forfarshire
Newton Mearns, Renfrewshire
Paisley, Renfrewshire
Rothesay, Isle of Bute
Rutherglen, Lanarkshire
Strathaven, Lanarkshire
Uddingston, Lanarkshire

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The following list is arranged in by modern street addresses; when a commercial building or block of tenements runs along more than one street, the name placed alphabetically is that of the principal street range. Contiguous buildings are listed together, even when in different streets.

For places outside the modern Glasgow City boundary, the historic counties of Scotland are used.

The cost of the job and the name of the builder is given, if known, followed by the location of any extant drawings and the published and manuscript sources which enable an attribution to be made.

Where extended information is given, hyperlinks to new pages are provided.


ADELAIDE, South Australia

HOLMWOOD, 20 Devonshire Street, North Walkerville

New house, for William Austin Horn, built posthumously from published designs, 1885

ATSN no.14 December 1995*, no.17 November 1996*

This Antipodean Holmwood was built from the drawings of Holmwood House in Cathcart, q.v., published in Blackie. Externally the house closely resembles Thomson's original, although it is larger, with a verandah and a wing to the left of the principal elevation containing a billiard room and there is no wall connecting with the coach house to the right; internally, the plan was modified and the details are quite different. Horn was a mining magnate and pastoralist, a Member of Parliament, a writer, sculptor and public benefactor. The estate was sold to the Crawford family in 1911, subdivided in 1955-56, and, in 1998, sold to new owners.

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AIRDRIE, Lanarkshire

ARRANVIEW

?New villa, for Gavin Black Motherwell, solicitor, 1868, with later additions

Crook*; G&W*; Alan Peden, The Monklands: An Illustrated Architectural Guide, RIAS 1992*; Sam McKinstry in ATSN no.6 January 1993*

Thomson's authorship of this Thomsonian villa in red sandstone has been disputed and there is no documentary evidence for the attribution. It may be by Robert Thomson, but David Walker wonders if it was built or completed to ‘Greek’ Thomson’s design but without his superintendence.

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ANNAN, Dumfriesshire

TOWN HALL

‡Unexecuted competition design, 1875

Gildard; Brian Edwards in ATSN no.4 June 1992*; ATSN no.5 October 1992*

Perspective drawing in Mitchell Library

According to Gildard, “the last work of this great architect - that at which he was working within two days of his death - was a design for a town-hall” and his description corresponds to the surviving drawing. In his manuscript, Gildard wrote ‘Hawick’ but then deleted it, and it is most likely that the design was for the Annan Town Hall competition, for which entries were invited by 1st April 1875.

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BAILLIESTON

GARROWHILL HOUSE

see GLASGOW: GARROWHILL HOUSE, MAXWELL DRIVE, Baillieston

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BALFRON, Stirlingshire

BALFRON SOUTH MANSE

Balfron_Manse.jpg (64877 bytes)

New house, for the Revd James Robertson, minister of Balfron old Relief congregation, c.1858

£1,000

Memorial; John Guthrie Smith, Strathendrick and its Inhabitants from early times, Glasgow 1896, p.47; Robert Small, History of the Congregations of the United Presbyterian Church from 1733 to 1900, Edinburgh 1904, vol.i, p.215; Worsdall; McFadzean*; Jim Thomson, The Balfron Heritage, Balfron 1991*

Asymmetrical villa, with timber used on the projecting gabled bay. The old Relief Congregation formed part of the United Presbyterian church in Balfron.

BALFRON CHURCHYARD

Headstone for the family of the Revd James Thomson, 1864

McFadzean

The Revd James Thomson (no relation) was minister at Holm Kirk from 1812 until 1860: see Holm of Balfron.

HOLM OF BALFRON, Stirlingshire

SMALL CHURCH & MANSE

wpeF.gif (16862 bytes)

‡Unexecuted design for combined church and manse, for Ministers, Elders and Managers of the United Presbyterian Church Holm Balfron, c.1860

Drawing showing plan and elevations in Mitchell

McFadzean*; Andrew MacMillan in S&McK*

Unique design for a rectangular church with shorter narrow aisles and a walled forecourt, combined with a contiguous manse to the same width, all marked by a strong horizontality, low pitched roofs with generous eaves. As both a church and a manse at Holm of Balfron to the east of Balfron were mentioned in the list of Thomson's works in the Deed of Trust for the Alexander Thomson Memorial and as the executed building has a very similar plan (see below), it is assumed that this remarkable unlabelled and unexecuted design was for this commission.

CHURCH & MANSE

?New combined church & manse, for Ministers, Elders and Managers of the United Presbyterian Church Holm Balfron, 1860-61

£1,400

Memorial; John Guthrie Smith, Strathendrick and its Inhabitants from early times, Glasgow 1896, p.47; Robert Small, History of the Congregations of the United Presbyterian Church from 1733 to 1900, Edinburgh 1904, vol.i, p.213

Built for an United Presbyterian congregation descended from the Holm Kirk of Balfron, an Anti-Burgher congregation formed in 1737. The new building consisted of a church with 300 sittings placed back-to-back with a manse, on the same plan as Thomson’s drawing in Mitchell (see above) but in an uncharacteristic and pedestrian style - the severely ordinary church having Gothic windows, while the conventional Victorian manse exhibits no trace of Thomson’s individuality. Possibly it was merely Thomson’s general plan that was adopted - yet both the U.P. church and the U.P. manse at Holm of Balfron were separately cited in the list of works attached to the Thomson Memorial deed of trust.

The Revd James Thomson, who commissioned Thomson shortly before his retiral, was minister at Holm Kirk for 57 years after 1812: see Balfron: Churchyard; he was succeeded by the Revd Robert Muir in 1860. The church opened in December 1861 and in 1880 the Holm Kirk Anti-Burghers joined the U.P. congregation in Balfron village. The church was converted for domestic use in 1950s, the pulpit surviving.

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BEARSDEN, Dunbartonshire

CARRICK ARDEN, 22 DRYMEN ROAD

?New villa, for John Henderson, shipowner, c.1855

Italianate Romanesque style; attribution undocumented and unlikely.

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BLAIRMORE, Argyllshire

ST ANN'S LODGE, Shore Road

?New double-villa, c.1853

Peter McNeill & David M. Walker, 'A Note on Greek Thomson', Glasgow Review, vol.ii, no.2, Summer 1965;

Attribution on stylistic grounds as similar to Seymour Lodge, q.v. Oakleigh Villa in Blairmore, by John Gordon of 1863, was inspired by Thomson's Craig Ailey at Kilcreggan, q.v.

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BLANTYRE, Lanarkshire

BARDYKES HOUSE, Bardykes Road

?New house

Walker

A large building in Thomson's villa style subsequently used as a school ; an unlikely attribution, according to McFadzean; possibly by Turnbull.

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BOTHWELL, Lanarkshire

GLEN EDEN VILLA, Laighlands Road

New house, 1855

Worsdall; McFadzean

Villa in round-arched style similar to Craig Ailey, Kilcreggan, q.v., subsequently divided into two dwellings with one half known as ‘Craigievar’.

GREEN BANK VILLA, 20 Green Street

New villa, ?for John Macdonald, ship owner, wine merchant & bonded warehousekeeper, 1855

Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W*

At the 1861 Census, the house was inhabited by John Macdonald; later additions.

HUNTLY LODGE

†New Villa

Worsdall

Demolished after a fire before 1960

Romanesque style, similar to Glen Eden, Bothwell, q.v.

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BUSBY, Lanarkshire

BUSBY HOUSE, Field Road

ATS_Busby_House_Car.jpg (179238 bytes)

†Large addition to existing house, for Durham Kippen or for Inglis & Wakefield, 1856-57

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CATHCART

BRAEHEAD VILLA

see GLASGOW: 74-76 NETHERLEE ROAD

HOLMWOOD HOUSE

see GLASGOW: 61-63 NETHERLEE ROAD

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CLYNDER

NORTH & SOUTH VILLAS

?New villas

Symmetrical pair of houses similar to Seymour Lodge, Cove, q.v.

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COVE, Dunbartonshire

ANCHORAGE (OLD MANSE), Church Road

?New house, 1850s

Gothic style, with details similar to Craigrownie Castle; attribution undocumented. The nearby Cove chapel (Church of Scotland), for which this was the manse, was designed by H.H. Mackinney of Liverpool and is also Gothic.

ASHLEA / ELLERSLIE (COVE COTTAGE), Rosneath Road

?New pair of semi-detached villas, ?for James and Robert Couper, paper manufacturers, 1850s

Worsdall

Symmetrical pair of houses in Gothic style, opposite Cove pier and originally called Cove Cottage; attribution undocumented. Trefoil decoration on timber gable bargeboards since removed. Were these the summer houses built by James and Robert Couper as copies of Braehead Villa in Cathcart, q.v.?

BARON CLIFF (BARON’S POINT VILLA), Rosneath Road

†?New villa, for John McElroy, developer & railway contractor, 1860s?

Destroyed by fire 1988

W.C. Maugham, Rosneath, Past and Present, Paisley & London 1893, p.261; Peter McNeill & David M. Walker, 'A Note on Greek Thomson', Glasgow Review, vol.ii, no.2, Summer 1965; Worsdall

In Tudor style; attribution undocumented; house placed high on cliff, approached from Shore Road below. The boundary wall and gate piers survive.

CRAG OWLET (IVY CAVE COTTAGE), Rosneath Road

New pair of semi-detached houses each containing two dwellings, for John McElroy, 1850s

Worsdall; McFadzean; Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*

A sophisticated development of the “later Gothic” style of Seymour Lodge, q.v. with bay windows with concave facets as in the corner of Thomson’s Queen’s Park Terrace in Glasgow, q.v.; attribution undocumented but very likely. This terrace of four houses was owned by John McElroy and originally called Ivy Cave Cottage. Central chimney-stack now truncated.

CRAIG AILEY (ITALIAN VILLA), South Ailey Road

New villa, for John McElroy, developer, railway contractor & ironfounder, c.1852

£1,154:16:6d

Drawings (of modified design) in Blackie*

Amelia; Memorial; APSD; W.C. Maugham, Rosneath, Past and Present, Paisley & London 1893, p.261; Barclay; Law; Worsdall; McFadzean*; Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*; Glendinning, MacInnes & MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture, Edinburgh 1996*

Villa with belvedere in round-arched manner designed, as the architect (presumably) wrote in Blackie, as "only a summer residence," which "affords a good example of the capabilities of the Italian style, and how that style may be made to combine modern requirements, such as large and numerous windows, oriels, balconies, &c., with graceful forms and picturesque grouping." External walls of shist rubble and freestone, with the battered basement formed of vertical courses of rubble stone.

But there is confusion over the name of this house as the document compiled for the Thomson Memorial lists both Craig Ailey, Kilcreggan, and the Italian Villa under 'Villas' (the APSD only lists the Italian Villa), yet on the 1st edition 1862 Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1860, the Italian Villa is marked where Craig Ailey stands today while no other house is labelled 'Craig Ailey.' Further confusion is created by the fact that Craig Ailey is not in Kilcreggan - as both Villa and Cottage Architecture and the Memorial state - but in Cove. The Italian Villa (but not Craig Ailey) is mentioned in the 1871 Census as occupied by the Newman family.

John McElroy (1802-76) was a successful railway contractor and “proprietor of houses,” born in Ireland and resident at Craigrownie Cottage in 1861, who was also an ironfounder whose firm, Weir & McElroy, supplied much of the ironwork for the St Vincent Street Church. With Thomas Forgan, McElroy built Cove pier in 1852 and he took the feus on land running south on which were built Baron Cliff, Craig Ailey, Hartfield, Baron’s Hall, Glen Eden, Craigrownie House and other villas, some but not all of which were designed by Thomson. Craig Ailey was built on part of an eight acre plot also containing Craigrownie House and Craigrownie Cottage which was feued in 1852, although the account in Blackie gives the date 1850 for the house.

CRAIGROWNIE CASTLE (HOUSE), Rosneath Road

New house & boundary wall, for John McElroy, developer, ironfounder & railway contractor, c.1854

Amelia; APSD; Barclay; Worsdall; McFadzean; Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*;

House in Baronial style, and may seem an unlikely attribution to Thomson although it was mentioned in the memoir written by his widow. It seems that at the beginning of his career, Thomson was prepared to use any appropriate style and the original part of Craigrownie House suggests that he could have become an accomplished exponent of the Scots Baronial manner. The building history is undocumented; originally called Craigrownie House and built in the 1850s by John McElroy on land sold by the Duke of Argyll in 1852. Internal joinery and other details similar to those in Craig Ailey and Seymour Lodge, qq.v. Bought by Alexander Abercrombie in 1858 from John McElroy; wing added in 1890s and further additions made in 1960s, now demolished. Rugged boundary wall with unusual trabeated openings almost certainly by Thomson.

FERNDEAN VILLA, Rosneath Road

?New villa, ?for Robert Blackie, publisher

Gothic design, probably by Thomson.

FERNDEAN VILLA GATES & GARDEN WALL

[†]New gate & boundary wall, for Robert Blackie, publisher, 1863

£56:19:11d

Drawing in Blackie*

Memorial; Worsdall; McFadzean; Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*

The implication of the description of the gate and wall in Villa and Cottage Architecture is that the villa had also been designed by Thomson as “the decorative treatment is a free rendering of the Gothic style, but is more rustic than the character of the villa itself.” As the client was his friend Robert Blackie, this is highly likely. The gate was of “red pine timber, with ornamental studs and spikes of iron,” the wall of schist with copings of whinstone and freestone - like Thomson’s other boundary walls in Cove. The gate itself is no longer extant but the gatepier and boundary wall survive.

GLEN EDEN, Rosneath Road

New villa, for John McElroy, developer, ironfounder & railway contractor, c.1856, or earlier?

W.C. Maugham, Rosneath, Past and Present, Paisley & London 1893, p.261; Worsdall; Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*

Extraordinary house with round arched windows, but with some square-headed windows on the west side elevation and pointed arches on the east side; giant triglyphs used as a decorative motif and guttae on chimneystacks. Authorship undocumented, but the unbroken low-pitched roof over the main volume, the recessed planes of the ground floor external wall on the flanks of the front elevation, the monolith mullions of the trabeated bay window and the shape of the outbuildings, together with the plan and internal joinery and plasterwork details (such as a lyre within a wreath above an ornamental ventilation strip in the tympana above the doors) similar to those in Craig Ailey nearby, q.v., suggest that an attribution to Thomson is very likely: who else could have designed it?

Gate piers of massive rubble stones and (white) quartz with neo-Classical resonances may also indicate that the design may be an exploration of the origins of architecture, possibly suggested by the name of the house. Finial flanked by serpents (?) above pediment now missing. The curious main entrance, with its primitive arch head formed by three large stones within a false round arch, may reflect Thomson’s growing concern with the instability of arcuated structures and was possibly derived from a section of a tomb near the Pyramids of Gizeh published in 1855 in James Fergusson’s Illustrated Handbook of Architecture. This house, together with the neighbouring Kirklea, q.v., and Hartfield (demolished), was built by McElroy; it was sold to John Edmond Swan, metal broker of Glasgow, who made internal alterations.

GRAFTON (LODGE), Rosneath Road

?New villa, 1860s

Attribution on stylistic grounds; some windows with round arches, and with low-pitched gables. The house is not marked on the 1862 Ordnance Survey map.

ITALIAN VILLA, see CRAIG AILEY

KIRKLEA (BARON’S HALL), Rosneath Road

?New house, for John McElroy, c.1860

W.C. Maugham, Rosneath, Past and Present, Paisley & London 1893, p.261

Highly unusual Gothic house with tall pitched roof and projecting bay windows with a central mullion; authorship undocumented, but certain details - e.g., recessed planes of ground floor masonry flanking the front elevation - appear on houses by Thomson. Originally called Baron’s Hall on Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1860. The house and land was sold to Robert McClure, merchant, in 1860 for £1425.

KNOCKDERRY CASTLE

New house, 1855?

APSD; Barclay; Law*; Worsdall; McFadzean; Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*

House in Baronial style; additions by John Honeyman 1869 (£1,600) for William Miller; additions by William Leiper 1896. This may seem an unlikely work by Thomson, and Fiona Sinclair notes that John Honeyman built a house in Cove for a Mr Campbell in 1856; at the 1861 Census the head of household was John Campbell, wholesale druggist, who had earlier bought Seymour Lodge, q.v., from the developer Thomas Forgan.

SEYMOUR LODGE, Rosneath Road

New villa, with detached coach-house, for Thomas Forgan, 1850

£966:4:8½d

Drawings of modified design published in Blackie*

Amelia; Memorial; W.C. Maugham, Rosneath, Past and Present, Paisley & London 1893, p.261; Barclay; Law; Worsdall; McFadzean*; Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*

A villa in what Thomson described as "an adaptation of the later Gothic," sold in 1852 to John Campbell junior, wholesale druggist, who sold the house in 1855 Elizabeth Campbell of Glasgow, who was there at the 1861 Census (when John Campbell was at Knockderry Castle, Cove, q.v.). Walls of shist rubble with the principal elevation of dressed freestone; additions were made before 1868 and the exterior stonework was subsequently painted. This villa generated many imitations nearby, e.g., Dunvronaig and Dunvorleigh in Kilcreggan, q.v., on the Shore Road (later Rosneath Road), a carriage drive laid out in 1848 by the Duke of Argyll (whose seat was Rosneath Castle).

Kilcreggan Pier was built in 1850 and Cove Pier in 1852, allowing steam boat services to encourage the development of villas on land feued from the Duke of Argyll. Cove Pier was built by John McElroy and Thomas Forgan, and the latter developed the land north of the pier, building Cove Cottages, Rocklea, Seymour Lodge and Ferndean.

How many of the similar houses in Cove and Kilcreggan Thomson actually designed himself is not documented; many look like Seymour Lodge, but whether these were inspired directly or resulted from its design (along with that of Craig Ailey, q.v.) being published in Blackie's Villa and Cottage Architecture in 1868 cannot be established. Some are possibly by Thomson's sometime partner, John Baird, whose cottage of 1863 at Roseneath was also included in the Blackie book; others are by William Motherwell.

SHORE ROAD BRIDGE, Rosneath Road

New bridge over Dowall Burn, for the Cove Bridge Committee, c. 1873

McFadzean*

Arched opening in massive retaining wall of rubble stone forming curved abutments at either end. £12 was still owing to Thomson at his death, indicating that the job was begun before the partnership with Turnbull. The chairman of the committee was Thomson's client and friend, the publisher Robert Blackie (who resided at Ferndean Villa as well as at no.7 Great Western Terrace in Glasgow, qq.v). Shore Road was later renamed Rosneath Road.

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CRAIGMORE, ROTHESAY, ISLE OF BUTE

TOR HOUSE (UPPER CLIFTON HOUSE), Ardencraig Road

Torhouse.jpg (37616 bytes)

New villa, for John Wilson, bookseller & stationer, 1856-57

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DALMUIR, Dunbartonshire

MELBOURNE HOUSE, Regent Street

?New villa, for A.J. Campbell, general manager of Beardmore's shipyard, c.1877-80

Worsdall

Attribution unlikely; probably by Turnbull according to Worsdall, who also cited several other Thomsonesque buildings in Dalmuir by Turnbull, 1877: 19 The Crescent / 45-47 Duntocher Road (left incomplete in 1878) and a group of three houses: Holmfield, Westfield & Glenlee (or Ravenswood, The Tower & Uladah Towers)???? in Duntocher Road, all destroyed during the Second World War.

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DULLATUR, Dunbartonshire

CRAIGARD, Victoria Road

?New villa, 1875-76

DUNLUCE, Prospect Road

?New villa, 1875-76

Attribution by McFadzean, but possibly by Turnbull

HILLCROFT?

?New villa, 1875-76

?Demolished

RICHMOND HOUSE, Prospect Road

?New villa, 1875-76

?Demolished

Attribution by McFadzean, but possibly by Turnbull

STANLEY HOUSE, ?Prospect Road

†?New villa1875-76

Demolished

WOODEND, Prospect Road

?New villa, 1875-76

Feuing plan in Glasgow City Archives

Francis H. Groome, ed., Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, new edition

Attribution by McFadzean, but possibly by Turnbull although the designs are more taut and coherent than his Lenzie villas, q.v.; the Ordnance Gazetteer noted that "Dullatur Villas here, on a plot of 164 acres, around the old mansions of Dykehead and Dullatur, were erected in 1875-76." The feuing plan of the lands of Dullatur invited application to Duncan Lennox, J.L. & T.L. Selkirk and A. & G. Thomson & Turnbull, and indicated some fifty new houses.

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DUNOON

ARGYLL HOTEL, Argyll Street

?New building, c.1850

Frank Arneil Walker with Fiona Sinclair, The North Clyde Estuary, RIAS Edinburgh 1992*

Unlikely undocumented attribution to Thomson on stylistic grounds; two-storey wing added 1876. Worsdall also cited Lyall Cliff, Esplanade, Dunoon.

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DUNTOCHER, Dunbartonshire

PARKHALL U.P. MANSE

Duntocher1.jpg (41908 bytes)

†New house, for the Revd John Stark, 1874-75

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EASTWOOD

OLD CEMETERY, WODROW MONUMENT:

see GLASGOW, EASTWOOD OLD CEMETERY

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EDINBURGH

ST MARY'S FREE CHURCH, BROUGHTON STREET

St_Georges_Edinburgh.jpg (88682 bytes)

‡Unexecuted competition design, c.1858

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GLASGOW

THE KNOWE, 301 ALBERT DRIVE / SHIELDS ROAD, Pollokshields

New villa, for John Blair, hat & cap manufacturer, c.1852, 1854 &c.

Amelia; Memorial; Francis Worsdall, typescript notes in Glasgow City Archives in Mitchell; Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W; BofS*; List; Ronald Smith, Pollokshields: Historical Guide and Heritage Walk, Glasgow 1998*

Villa in Italianate Romanesque style designed by Baird & Thomson 1850 and built ?1852-53 on land feued from Nether Pollok estate 1851; the client also commissioned a warehouse in the city centre [see Dixon Street / Howard Street]. House enlarged to north c.1855-58 with new study and drawing room; Shields Farm to the east demolished 1870 and Shields Road extended south over its site, allowing the enlargement of the gardens: new boundary walls with new entrance in Aytoun Road (formerly Lower Shields Road) c.1873, &c.

The Knowe was originally no.1 Albert Drive; name changed to 'Nile Park' when bought by William Hood, butcher, in 1892; original name restored by next owner in 1909. Large new billiard room added to south-east by John Campbell McKellar 1899; boiler room added 1895 and workshops 1902 by John Ballantyne. Interior plasterwork survives; most of chimneypieces replaced in 1890s, but original white marble chimneypiece with incised laurel (?) ornament and integrated overmantel survives in drawing room. Grounds built over with blocks of flats by Messrs Bovis - Knowehead Gardens & Knowehead Terrace - 1974.

THE KNOWE LODGE, ALBERT DRIVE, Pollokshields

New coachman's house & gates, for John Blair, 1852, c.1873 &c.

McFadzean*

Coach house part of original build and later partly demolished and altered for new entrance.

336-338 ALBERT DRIVE

?New house, 1877

Worsdall; McFadzean*; List

Probably designed by Thomson and executed by Robert Turnbull after his death; now divided into two dwellings.

BEAUFORT GARDENS, 19-23 GARTURK STREET / 265-289 ALLISON STREET / 34 DAISY STREET

New block of tenements with shops below, 1875-78

Worsdall; McFadzean; G&W; BofS; List

Scheme begun by Thomson and then executed to simpler design by Turnbull c.1878

7-20 ATHOLE GARDENS

?New terrace of houses

Walker

BUCK'S HEAD BUILDINGS, 59-61 ARGYLE STREET / 1 DUNLOP STREET

New commercial premises with shops below, for Henry Leck, accountant, 1863-c.1868

Amelia; Memorial; Gildard; Glasgow and its Environs: A Literary, Commercial and Social Review, Past & Present..., London 1891*; Henry-Russell Hitchcock, 'Early Cast-Iron Facades', Architectural Review cix, February 1951*; Law*; Worsdall; McFadzean*; Architects' Journal 6th May 1854*; G&W*; BofS; Brian Edwards in S&McK*; List

Curved corner building with external elevated iron columns proud of trabeated masonry facade - a combination not repeated in Thomson’s work. The building history of this block and its southern extension along Dunlop Street has been problematic, but owing to the researches of Raymond Nicol, the chronology can now be established. This eponymous commercial building replaced the Buck's Head Hotel, an 18th century mansion facing Argyle Street, which was demolished in 1863 together with its rear extensions. At this point Dunlop Street was widened.

The external iron colonettes on the curved facade may possibly have been added after a dispute with John Carrick, City Architect, about the structural stability of the building: a partly illegible copy [in the Archives] of a letter Carrick sent to Thomson on 4th December 1863 reads that

“I am really ashamed at the delay at the Bucks Head Building. There is a threatened [?] rebellion [?] in the neighbourhood & rumour of a Petition to the Town Council... The financial audit of the speculation [?] is suffering, and I am annoyed with calls, as to the stability of the structure. Let me know from you [?] as the Fiscal is threatening to raise an action...”

Internally, Thomson used McConnel composite iron beams, a combination of wrought iron and cast iron sections which had been patented in 1855. Parapet sculpture by J. & G. Mossman. The basic articulation of the facade but with a two-storey pilastrade and without the external ironwork was later continued in the extension along Dunlop Street, which was once erroneously thought to precede the Buck's Head Building in date. In 1870 the ground floor of both buildings was occupied by the Glasgow Clothing Co., which expanded to all five floors after the Buck's Head Building “was considerably enlarged and improved in 1878-79.” Henry Leck, who bought the site in 1858 and sold it in 1869, was an accountant and developer for whom Thomson gave evidence in his disputed claim against the Caledonian Railway in 1874 over property he owned on the site of Central Station [see Gordon Street / Alston Street].

3-11 DUNLOP STREET

[†]New warehouse with shops below, for Henry Leck, 1864-c.1868

Demolished 1974 except for northernmost three bays

Glasghu Facies... The History of Glasgow vol.iv, John Tweed, Glasgow 1872; Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W*; David Walker &c. in S&McK*

This building is not the extension to the Buck's Head Hotel with “ornamental Chimney-Stalks” and flues in the pilasters which was the subject of controversy for the Dean of Guild in 1849. Raymond Nicol has demonstrated that this had nothing to do with Thomson and that the site was cleared, along with that of the Buck's Head Hotel, in 1863-64. New buildings to the north and south of the new Wilson's Court Lane off Dunlop Street were under construction in 1864 (but not occupied until 1871), the northern block being designed by Thomson in a manner harmonious with the new Buck's Head Buildings with tall pilasters but without the external ironwork. The junction between the two buildings was marked externally by a slight projection - presumably to accommodate the width of iron columns on the Argyle Street block - and internally only by a thin brick partition. The McConnel beams used in the Dunlop Street block appear to have been of a later pattern, possibly resulting from the alterations made in 1878-79 (see above). The demolished bays of the Dunlop Street frontage were replaced by a feeble and inadequate replica at the time of the redevelopment of the site of St Enoch Station.

135-137 ARGYLE STREET

†additions, for Alexander McAllister, 1862

Drawings in Glasgow City Archives

Small extension of existing warehouse off St Enoch Wynd.

CROSSMYLOOF BUILDINGS, 11?-21 BAKER STREET, Langside

†Two terraces of model working men's houses, for Mr Thomson of Camphill1855-56

Demolished c.1964

Building Chronicle 1st July 1856 p.79; Worsdall; Walker; Brian Edwards in S&McK

Two rows of "model working-men's houses", one of 20 and one of 24 dwellings on two floors with separate entrances for each pair of flats. The rent for each flat was £6 a year. “The buildings are in the cottage style, the windows, of zinc lattice work, are hinged instead of being hung in the usual way, the roof is steeply pitched, and the eaves project eighteen inches beyond the walls, being supported on cantilevers... Each range of houses is terminated by gable ends, projecting eighteen inches beyond the general line of the building, and giving the inmates the privilege not only of a more commodious house, but an entrance by a very handsome porch.” The description corresponds with two terraces which lay parallel to and between Pollokshaws Road and Stevenson Drive to the south-east of Langside Avenue as shown on the 1:500 Ordnance Survey map published 1895; Baker Street was subsequently laid out along their north-east front. The northernmost terrace had disappeared by 1964.

CHALMERS MEMORIAL FREE CHURCH, 42-50 BALLATER (GOVAN) STREET

Ballater St 1.jpg (81046 bytes)

†New church, for Free Church congregation1859, enlarged 1873; hall added 1871

Partly demolished c.1896; gutted by fire 1971 and demolished

Amelia; Memorial; William Ewing, Annals of the Free Church of Scotland, Edinburgh 1914, vol.ii, p.92; Law*; Worsdall; McFadzean; G&W; Andrew Herron, Historical Directory to Glasgow Presbytery, Glasgow 1984 (typescript in Mitchell); ATSN no.7 June 1993*; S&McK*; Eric Eunson, The Gorbals: An Illustrated History, Ochiltree 1996*;

Thomson’s fourth, little-known Glasgow church, with a rectangular centralised interior and a facade treatment sometimes compared to that of the later Unity Temple, Oak Park, by Frank Lloyd Wright. Built for Union Free Church congregation; sold 1869 to Mission Station under Trinity Free Church and renamed after Mr Cuninghame of Merry & Cuninghame who provided £1,000 purchase price; also sometimes known as the Govan Street Free Church. The original building had a symmetrical facade and a rectangular interior with seats for 850, but the eastern entrance and side gallery was removed when the adjacent City of Glasgow Union Railway viaduct was widened from two tracks to four in 1896-97. The church hall to the west, on a slightly different building line, was added in 1871, probably by Thomson, when Govan Street (now Ballater Street) was extended westwards. Building sold to Glasgow & South Western Railway in 1898 and by the beginning of the 20th century it was used by ‘bottle closure manufacturers’, i.e., as a cork works.

CAIRNEY BUILDING, 40-42 BATH STREET

cairney_bldg2.jpg (114476 bytes)

†New commercial premises with shops below, for John Cairney, glass-stainer, 1860-61

Demolished c.1935

Original elevation drawing in Mitchell; elevation published in Building News 1872 and measured drawing by Frank R. Burnet in The Architects' & Builders' Journal 1914.

Building News 31st May 1872 p.436 (elevation)* & 24th January 1873 p.109 (details)*; Amelia; Memorial; Gildard; APSD; Builder 31st December 1910*; The Architects' & Builders' Journal 13th May 1914*; Henry-Russell Hitchcock, 'Early Cast-Iron Facades', Architectural Review cix, February 1951*; Law; Worsdall; McFadzean*; Michael Donnelly, Glasgow Stained Glass, a preliminary study, Glasgow 1981; G&W*; AA*; McKean*; S&McK*;

One of Thomson's most innovative and extraordinary commercial buildings; the Building News noted that it was “planned for (generally) shops and counting-houses, and a workshop and warehouse for the proprietor's own use... The style is that peculiar variety of Greek which the Messrs Thomson may be said to have created.” Cairney's kilns and furnaces were in the lower of the two storeys below street level. John Cairney was a partner in his father’s firm, William Cairney & Sons, by 1850 and resigned from the Glasgow Architectural Society owing to ill-health in 1860; the building was owned by Rowley & Dick, oil-merchants, by 1872. In 1949, Henry-Russell Hitchcock wrote to Nikolaus Pevsner about this “warehouse in Bath Street which seems to me one of the finest of all Victorian warehouses.”

SCOTTISH EXHIBITION, 87-97 BATH STREET

†New exhibition hall, for the Architectural Institute of Scotland, 1854, altered 1872

Demolished 1875

Builder 13th January 1855, p.22, & 14th April 1855, p.172; Building Chronicle, passim., 1854-55; Building News 7th June 1872, p.456; George; Worsdall; McFadzean; Charles McKean in S&McK*

Premises for Glasgow Architectural Exhibition, intended to be permanent, which including rooms in different styles designed by several architects - Greek court by Baird & Thomson. Exhibition closed 1857 and premises used as showrooms & offices, then converted into coach house & stables by Thomson in 1872 for John E. Walker at cost of £450 [see Otago Street] before being replaced by a new office building by Thomson.

NOS.87-97 BATH STREET

†New office building, 1874-76

Demolished 1970

Building News 31st December 1875 p.764; Amelia; Walker; Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W; S&McK* 

A commercial building with a flat stone facade not articulated by columns or pilasters, but enlivened by three elaborate porches. It replaced the former Exhibition premises (see above) and was “in course of erection” in December 1875.

COCKBURN HOTEL (BUILDING), 135-143 BATH STREET / 138 WEST CAMPBELL STREET

†?Alterations & additions, 1875? or c.1879-81

Demolished 1970-71

McFadzean; Frank Worsdall, The City That Disappeared, Glasgow 1981*;

Additional upper floors &c., to building incorporating earlier houses probably executed by David Thomson & Robert Turnbull: McFadzean comments that the quality of the work makes an attribution to Thomson plausible. Originally an hotel?

ALEXANDRA HOTEL, 144 WEST CAMPBELL STREET / 148 BATH STREET

Alexhotel2.jpg (112546 bytes)

†Additions and alterations to existing building to make new hotel, for John Macrae, 1875-77

BELL STREET, see WATSON STREET

7-&7A BRUCE ROAD, LEVEN VIEW, Pollokshields

?New villa

Worsdall; List

Attribution on stylistic grounds

13 - or 18? BRUCE ROAD

?New villa

GARNKIRK WAREHOUSE, 243 BUCHANAN STREET / SAUCHIEHALL STREET

†New shop front (and interior?), for the Garnkirk Fireclay Co. (originally Garnkirk Coal Co.), 1857

Destroyed

Gildard; Glasgow and its Environs: A Literary, Commercial and Social Review, Past & Present..., London 1891; Worsdall; G. Quail, Garnkirk Fireclay, Strathkelvin District Libraries & Museum, 1985; The Word and the Stones, Glasgow 1990

The 1891 guide mentions “the extremely commodious offices and showrooms of the company at the corner of Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street...” while Gildard wrote of “the depending scroll on each side of the pilasters... in wood in a shop front in Buchanan Street...” and of “the magnificent [vase] in fireclay... of which you may see copies in the windows of the Garnkirk Warehouse in Buchanan Street.” The special chimney pots designed by Thomson for many of his buildings were made at the Garnkirk Works near Glasgow. John Cannan, salesman for the Garnkirk Fireclay Co., contributed to the Thomson Memorial Fund in 1876.

Also see OBJECTS for the Garnkirk Urn.

LILYBANK HOUSE, 40 BUTE GARDENS

Additions & alteration to existing house, for John Blackie, junior, publisher and Lord Provost, 1864

Walker; Worsdall; Henry Brougham Morton, A Hillhead Album, Glasgow 1973*; McFadzean*; BofS; List

The symmetrical Classical villa of c.1850 was extended to the south by Thomson with an asymmetrical wing with a new Ionic entrance portico; a further wing to the north was added by Honeyman & Keppie in 1895, by when the house was known as Queen Margaret Hall. John Blackie junior (d.1873) was Lord Provost of Glasgow in 1863-66 and was much involved with the City Improvement Scheme.

CALEDONIA ROAD U.P. CHURCH, 1 CALEDONIA ROAD, Hutchesontown

[†] New church & hall, for United Presbyterian congregation meeting in Wellington Place Academy, Commercial Road, 1856-57

37-39 CATHCART ROAD

†New block of tenements with shops below, for Robert McDougall, 1856-57

Demolished 1973

Drawing (also showing Caledonia Road Church) in Mitchell

Worsdall; McFadzean*; AA*; Robert Jeffrey & Ian Watson, eds, Images of Glasgow, Derby 1995, p.50*

The facade of this tenement was contiguous with the outside wall of the hall of the Caledonia Road Church.

190-192 HOSPITAL STREET, Hutchesontown

†New block of tenements with shops below, for James Roberton, metal-founder, 1856-57

Demolished 1972

Drawing (also showing Caledonia Road Church) in Mitchell

Worsdall; McFadzean*; S&McK*; ATSN no.15 January 1996

The facade of this tenement was contiguous with the external wall of the Caledonia Road Church.

WAVERLEY TERRACE, 105-157 CALEDONIA ROAD / 76 NABURN STREET

†New tenement, 1868-76

Demolished

Walker

Similar to Queen’s Park Terrace, Eglinton Street, q.v.

LANGSIDE ACADEMY, LANGSIDE AVENUE / CAMPHILL AVENUE

†New school building, for Mrs Adam, proprietor & principal, 1864-

Builder: John McIntyre

Demolished c.1902

Building News 10th June 1864, p.453; Amelia; Glasgow and its Environs: A Literary, Commercial and Social Review, Past & Present..., London 1891*; Walker; Worsdall; McFadzean; John McLeish in ATSN no.11 October 1994*

Jane Constable, the widow of George Adam, founder of the Langside Academy, commissioned Thomson to design a new school building in his characteristic manner with low-pitched roofs. She would seem to be the Mrs Adam who asked Thomson to design a “double villa” next door in 1872, q.v. The site is now occupied by a block of tenements, dated 1903.

DOUBLE VILLA, CAMPHILL AVENUE, Langside

‡Unexecuted design for new houses, for Mrs Adam & J.H. Robertson, 1872

George; McFadzean; John McLeish in ATSN no.11 October 1994 & no.12 January 1995

In a his letter to his brother George, 20th September 1872, Thomson recorded that “a set of plans which I made of a double villa for Mrs Adam and her son in law Mr. J.H. Robertson are in the same position...” of remaining on paper because of the high estimated cost. As Mrs Adam was the proprietor of Langside Academy - see above - who built Edgehill House next door - see below - for herself and James H. Robertson, lawyer, in 1873, Thomson's unexecuted and lost design was presumably for the same site.

EDGHILL HOUSE, 19-21 CAMPHILL AVENUE

?New pair of semi-detached houses, for Mrs Adam & J.H. Robertson, 1873

John McLeish in ATSN no.11 October 1994*

Following the rejection of Thomson’s design for a double villa on this site, the clients built a large and plain pair of semi-detached houses in the Gothic style with steeply pitched roofs and gables, but as certain details are reminiscent of Thomson’s earlier Gothic houses, e.g., at Cove, q.v., the design may well have been by him, or by Turnbull; internal Thomsonesque details confirm this.

COUPER MONUMENT, CATHCART OLD PARISH CEMETERY, Carmunnock Road

†?New grave monument, for James Couper, paper manufacturer, 1870

Made by J. & G. Mossman

Removed c.1933

Mossman

Monument erected 1870 and altered in 1871, with further letters cut in 1877; James Couper (1818-77) was Thomson's client at Holmwood House, q.v. and his first wife, Marion Harvey, died in 1869. It is not clear whether Thomson designed this, and whatever was raised was replaced following the death in 1933 of Couper's niece and heir, Marion Towle, who adopted the name Couper, so that she, along with James Couper and his two wives, now lie in front of a large and austere headstone made by J. & G. Mossman.

McINTYRE MONUMENT, CATHCART OLD PARISH CEMETERY

New tomb monument, for John McIntyre, 1867

Worsdall; McFadzean*; BofS; ATSN no.11 October 1994

Large monument with a base of cyclopaean masonry placed against wall in cemetery. Commissioned by Thomson's friend John McIntyre “Builder in Glasgow” for his son, Donald McLaren (1858-66); John McIntyre himself buried there in 1872.

37-39 CATHCART ROAD, Hutchesontown, see CALEDONIA ROAD CHURCH

JAMES LUMSDEN STATUE, CATHEDRAL SQUARE

?Plinth, 1862

Made by J. & G. Mossman

Worsdall

Granite plinth for bronze statue by John Mossman.

MOSSMAN STUDIO, CATHEDRAL STREET, see 83 NORTH FREDERICK STREET

31-57 CECIL STREET, Hillhead

?New tenement, 1873

Walker

No documentary evidence

1-5 CESSNOCK STREET

?New block of tenements

Worsdall

MONTGOMERIE QUADRANT, 17-25 CLEVEDEN ROAD, Kelvinside

?New terrace of houses, 1882-86

BofS

Unlikely attribution: a posthumous work, or by A.G. Thomson, or by James Sellars, who lived here? A copy photograph of ‘Montgomerie Crescent’ survives among the photographs and other material belonging to Thomson presented to Glasgow Museums & Art Galleries by his grand-daughter Mrs Stewart in 1934.

CUSTOMS HOUSE, CLYDE STREET

Alterations, 1873 or earlier

McFadzean

The Custom House of 1840 by John Taylor was one of the seven Greek Revival buildings in Glasgow cited by Thomson in his Haldane Lectures for employing the models found on the Acropolis of Athens and praised as “very good.” At the time of his death, Thomson was owed £3:3:0d in outstanding fees for this job, indicating that it dated from before the partnership with Turnbull.

COWCADDENS CROSS BUILDING, 110-120 COWCADDENS STREET

†New block of tenements with warehouse space and shops below, for J.& J. Jardine, masons & builders, 1872-

Demolished 1971

George; Building News 7th June 1872, p.455; Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W; ATSN no.12 January 1995;

Block of “warehouses and dwellings in Cowcaddens” with curved masonry facade and cast iron frame behind; shops divided by thin timber partitions to permit flexibility.

CLEGHORN-THOMSON MONUMENT, CRAIGTON CEMETERY

New tomb monument, for descendants of Robert Cleghorn and Margaret Thomson, c.1873-75

Made & carved by J. & G. Mossman

ATSN no.(21) May 1998*

Attribution by McFadzean. Monument similar in shape to the Beattie Monument in the Necropolis, q.v., but with the name ‘Thomson’ under the urn and a wreath carved on the plinth containing a hand holding flowers and the legend ‘Industrie Munis.’ The inscription records the names of Robert Cleghorn, MD, of Shawfield, died 1821; his wife Margaret Thomson, died 1795; their daughter Helen, died 1853; George Thomson, merchant, died 1852; his wife Margaret Graham, died 1854; John Thomson of London, died 1858, and others bearing the name of Thomson all formerly buried in the College (or Blackfriars) Churchyard. The first burials in the new Govan Burgh (Craigton) Cemetery were in June 1873 and the College Churchyard next to the University in the High Street was removed in 1875. The Mossman Order Book for 1877 recorded an urn on a short pillar for George G. Thomson of Cleghorn Villa, Pollokshields.

SPROTT MONUMENT, CRAIGTON CEMETERY

?New tomb obelisk, for the congregation of the Queen's Park United Presbyterian Church, 1876

Made & carved by J. & G. Mossman

£251

Mossman; ATSN no.(21) May 1998*

Sprott, Minister of the Queen's Park Church, q.v., died on 13th March, 1875, after being fatally injured in a railway accident at Bedford. As Thomson himself died shortly afterwards, this obelisk monument of granite designed by A. & G. Thomson & Turnbull must have been the work of Turnbull, based on the Middleton Monument in the Necropolis and Thomson's obelisk design, qq.v. Bronze portrait medallion of Sprott stolen.

CROSSMYLOOF BUILDINGS, see BAKER STREET

357-369 CROWN STREET / 53-57 CALEDONIA ROAD

†?new block of tenements, with shops below

Demolished

Walker; Worsdall

No documentary evidence; similar to the 590-612 EGLINTON STREET tenement, q.v.

278-282 CUMBERLAND STREET / 87-89 CAMDEN STREET

?New tenement, c.1870

Walker

No documentary evidence, but likely

DARNLEY TERRACE, see 98-130 KILMARNOCK ROAD

7 DIRLETON AVENUE (MAITLAND PLACE), Shawlands

?New villa

Demolished c.1970

Attribution on stylistic grounds by McFadzean; for other villas nearby see TANTALLON ROAD

17-19 DIXON STREET, see HOWARD STREET, ST ENOCH SQUARE

DOUBLE VILLA, see MANSIONHOUSE ROAD

3-11 DUNLOP STREET, see BUCK'S HEAD BUILDING, ARGYLE STREET

WODROW MONUMENT, EASTWOOD OLD CEMETERY, Thornliebank Road

New grave monument, for subscribers, 1850s

Made by J. & G. Mossman

Worsdall

Urn now missing from top. The inscription reads: “Erected to the memory of the Rev. Robert Wodrow Minister of Eastwood the faithful historian of the sufferings of the Church of Scotland from the year 1660 to 1688. He died 21st March 1734 in the 55th year of his age and 31st of his ministry ‘He being dead yet speaketh'.” The 1859 edition of Robert Chambers' Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen states that Wodrow's “memory has lately been commemorated by the erection of a monument” which was raised by public subscription. Wodrow was buried in the churchyard, but probably in an unmarked grave further to the west.

307 EGLINTON STREET / 60 CAVENDISH STREET

†New block of tenements, with shops below, 1858

Demolished 1969

G&W; McFadzean*; Eric Eunson, The Gorbals: An Illustrated History, Ochiltree 1996*

QUEEN'S PARK TERRACE, 39-41 DEVON STREET / 355-429 EGLINTON STREET / 1 TURRIFF STREET

†New terrace of tenements with shops below, for John McIntyre, William Stevenson & De Hort Baird, c.1856-60

Builder: John McIntyre

Demolished 1980-81

Building Chronicle July 1857 p.224; Amelia; Memorial; Law*; Hitchcock*; Worsdall; McFadzean*; S. Dool, D. McKellar & A. Meldrum, Macdiss 197? (lost?); Gerard Creanor, 'The Terraces of Greek Thomson', Macdiss 1975*; Frank Worsdall, The Tenement: A Way of Life, Edinburgh 1979* (2nd ed. 1989*); Iain B. Miller, 'Three Thomson Tenements' Macdiss. 1980*; Frank Worsdall, The City That Disappeared, Glasgow 1981*; G&W*; The Word and the Stones, Glasgow 1990; S&McK*; ATSN no.10 May 1994 & no.11 October 1994; Eric Eunson, The Gorbals: An Illustrated History, Ochiltree 1996*; Glendinning, MacInnes & MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture, Edinburgh 1996*

Thomson's largest, finest and most influential block of tenements, built in two stages between Devon Street and Elgin, now Turriff Street, and originally numbered 233-279. “Is it perhaps superfluous to state that the Greeks did not build tenements?” Francis Worsdall wondered in 1966. “The derogatory remarks which are sometimes aimed at Thomson's highly original and monumental block of tenements in Eglinton Street makes one wonder. The rhythmic quality which he invariably gives to his windows is particularly suitable to tenement design and this Eglinton Street example is a marvel of its kind. At the north end is a four-storey corner bay which begins as convex but changes to concave for the upper three stories - a unique feature.” This treatment of the northern corner, to Devon Street, as a separate element with vertical concave facets like a fluted column, was particularly remarkable and possibly inspired by the Temple of Venus at Baalbek. Attempts at rehabilitation of this important building after years of neglect ended with demolition by Glasgow District Council, despite its being statutorily listed category 'A' - “even the elegant black marble fireplaces were being smashed with a sledge hammer and the ceiling decorations tossed onto the rubbish heap.” The site remains empty.

TURRIFF STREET / 433-491 EGLINTON STREET / GOUROCK STREET

†New terrace of tenements, for John Findlay, mason; James Robertson, insurance agent; James Brodie, mill manager; James McIntyre, William Stevenson & De Hort Baird, c.1857-59

Largely demolished c.1876 and c.1970?

Walker, Worsdall; G&W; Michael Moss & John Hume, Glasgow As It Was vol.ii, Glasgow 1975*; Iain B. Miller, 'Three Thomson Tenements' Macdiss. 1980*; ATSN no.10 May 1994* & no.11 October 1994

Long range of tenements in Eglinton Street, built in four stages (for four different clients) and originally numbered 281-323, south of Turriff Street very similar in design to the Queen's Park Terrace immediately to the north; mostly demolished for the extension of the Caledonian Railway into Central Station 1873-79. However, the southern end of the terrace - 487-491 Eglinton Street - stood until the 1970s while windows and other pieces of the original stonework seems to have been re-used in the surviving two-storey section - 463-473 Eglinton Street - built above the railway.

GLASGOW: 590-612 EGLINTON STREET / 20-26 GOUROCK STREET

?New tenement, c.1860

Walker; Worsdall, List

GARROWHILL HOUSE, see MAXWELL DRIVE, Baillieston

SIR ROBERT PEEL STATUE, GEORGE SQUARE

Plinth, 1859

Made by J. & G. Mossman

Alexander Stoddart in S&McK*

Granite plinth for bronze statue by John Mossman. Another unidentified design for a plinth for a similar statue is in the Mitchell.

2-10? GIBSON (KING) STREET

†New tenement with shops below, for Andrew Clow, 1873

Demolished c.198?

Drawings in Glasgow City Archives in Mitchell

Walker; McFadzean

The drawings bear the names of both Thomson and his assistant, Robert Goodwin, at 122 Wellington Street; Goodwin later set up in independent practice and subscribed to the Thomson Memorial. The site in King, now Gibson Street was next to the River Kelvin and was bought off John E. Walker, for whom Thomson designed the stables nearby in Otago (Smith) Street, q.v.; demolished owing to structural instability. McFadzean erroneously gives the address as 174-206 Gibson Street.

32-68 GORBALS STREET, GORBALS CROSS, see 12-24 NORFOLK STREET

106-132 GORBALS STREET / 25-42 DUNMORE STREET

?New tenement, c.1875

Walker

No documentary evidence

(GROSVENOR BUILDING), 68-80 GORDON STREET

New block of commercial premises with shops below, for Alexander & George Thomson, 1858-59; gutted by fire 1864 and rebuilt 1864-66; altered 1907 &c.

£14,900 for the building

Glasgow Herald 23rd May 1864; North British Daily Mail 23rd May 1864; George; Amelia; Memorial; Gildard; APSD; Law*; Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W*; BofS; S&McK*; ATSN no.4 June 1992 & no.5 October 1992, no.11 October 1994, no.13 May 1995*, no18 February 1997*; Glendinning, MacInnes & MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture, Edinburgh 1996*; List

Commercial building with a most elaborately articulated facade built on the site of the Gordon Street U.P. Church after purchase by A. & G. Thomson, who were asked by the congregation to design the new church on the site bought with the proceeds in St Vincent Street, q.v.; the cost was £15,000 which was commuted to a Ground Annual payment of £700 (Glasgow Sasines at the Scottish Record Office). The building work was undertaken for the Thomsons by McCraw & Kay and Robert McConnel, ironfounder. The office of A. & G. Thomson was here by 1861 before moving to 183 West George Street, q.v. The building was gutted by fire on 21st May 1864: “So powerful was the heat of the flames that it was impossible to stand on the opposite side of the street, while the corners of the stone-work of the building have been rounded as if by a week’s labour of a regiment of masons... The long slender stone frontage, with its delicate architectural ornamentation, alone remains” - as is confirmed by photographs then taken by Thomas Annan.

After the fire, the Glasgow Herald reported that,

"With a street frontage of nearly 100 feet, it extended backwards to Renfield Lane, forming an immense square block, four storeys in height, besides attics and sunk flat... towards the lane was a frontage, consisting of tall stone pilasters running up the entire height of the building, and alternating with wide spaces filled in with wood and glass. In the interior of the building, iron was freely used in the shape of pillars and girders, and in the upper storeys a large quantity of timber was employed.”

Shops were on the ground floor; on the upper floors staircases and counting houses were at either end with warehouses and showrooms in between:

“The lighting of these was provided for by a large 'well' with sloping sides of wood and glass which descended through the centre of the block, down to the level of the first floor. The roof was constructed of wood and glass, the former then covered with asphalte... Taking into consideration the peculiar construction of the building and the inflammable character of a large proportion of its contents, one might have anticipated beforehand that a fire obtaining anything like a hold in it would be attended with disastrous consequences... Thomsons’ building continued to belch forth flame like the centre of a miniature volcano.”

The building had been insured for £15-16,000. Dean of Guild Court Proceedings for 21st July 1864 noted that A. & G. Thomson were “to re-erect or alter a tenement recently destroyed by fire in Gordon Street” requiring the closure of a quarter of a street for seven months, and the block was rebuilt by 1866. Although the rents provided a source of income, this building was a constant source of anxiety for the Thomson brothers as their surviving correspondence of 1871-74 reveals. The building burned again in 1901 and in 1907 a large superstructure containing the Grosvenor Restaurant designed by J.H. Craigie of Clarke, Bell & Craigie was added, giving the present name to the building. Interior altered 1958 and again damaged by fire 1967; facade only retained (and mutilated) in new development 1992.

For photographs, go here.

GORDON STREET / ALSTON STREET

‡Unexecuted design for warehouse and shops, for Henry Leck, c.1873-74

ATSN no.14 December 1995

A. & G. Thomson & Turnbull made drawings for “proposed warehouses & shops, east corner of Alston and Gordon Streets” for Henry Leck, who had acquired property on the south side of Gordon Street in 1872-73. This was shrewd, as the land was needed for the proposed new terminus of the Caledonian Railway which obtained its Act in 1873. The following year, Thomson gave evidence on property values on behalf of Leck in his claim for compensation against the railway company. Alston Street and Leck’s properties disappeared when Glasgow Central Station was built in 1875-78. Thomson’s drawings do not survive; Leck’s papers are at Glasgow City Archives. 

GOVAN STREET FREE CHURCH, see BALLATER STREET

485-503 GOVAN ROAD / 2-6 CARMICHAEL STREET

†?New block of tenements, c.1872

Demolished

Walker; G&W

GRANTLY TERRACE, see 196-200 KILMARNOCK ROAD

1-11 GREAT WESTERN TERRACE, GREAT WESTERN ROAD

New terrace of eleven houses, for William Henderson, builder, and/or James Whitelaw Anderson, landowner, 1867-77

George; Amelia; Memorial; Gildard; Barclay*; Builder 31st December 1910*; The Architects' & Builders' Journal 13th May 1914*; A.E. Richardson, 'Architecture: The Classic Tradition,' in G.M. Young, ed., Early Victorian England 1830-1865, London 1934, vol.ii, p.206; Stewart; J.M. Reid, Glasgow, London 1956*; Architects' Journal 6th May 1964*; Worsdall; McFadzean*; Michael Donnelly, Glasgow Stained Glass, a preliminary study, Glasgow 1981; G&W*; McKean*; BofS; J.H.D. Horne, Macdiss 1984; Karen Lambert, Macdiss 1995; S&McK*; ATSN no.8 October 1993, no.12 January 1995, Brian Park in no.13 May 1995*, Colin McKellar in no.15 January 1996 & no.(21) May 1998; List

The grandest terrace in Glasgow: an unprecedented composition of large two-storey houses on a terrace but with two pairs of three-storey houses placed neither at the ends nor in the centre. For Albert Richardson, Thomson “here... showed the greatest restraint and it is no exaggeration to say that a finer example of Victorian architecture of similar character does not exist.” Gildard, in discussing the abstraction of the design and the remorseless regularity of the fenestration, noted that “the windows have no dressings, but Greek goddesses could afford to appear undressed...” Henderson was the developer of Great Western Terrace but he died insolvent in 1870 before any houses were finished, so Thomson's client, legally, was Anderson, a power loom cloth manufacturer, who owed £263 at Thomson's death (paid in 1877).

Eight houses were completed during Thomson's lifetime; nos 9-11 were built later and finished internally under the direction of J.J. Burnet. No.7 was decorated by Thomson, possibly with Daniel Cottier, for the publisher, Robert Blackie; Thomson wrote to his brother in 1872 that “We have had a very tedious and bothersome business with Robert Blackie's House in Great Western Terrace. Rodger and he are working at cross purposes and I dont know how matters will be settled - We are now getting on with the painting of it with the Brothers Orr in the usual pernickitty way.” (Rodger was presumably of the firm of Murdoch & Rodger, solicitors.) No.8 was later occupied by Sir William Burrell, who employed Robert Lorimer to spoil the interior; No.4, occupied by 1871 by James W. Macgregor, retired tobacco merchant, retains a double-height hall by Thomson (as well as Gothic work, possibly by Middleton, of Cheltenham, by whom there is a similar room in the Bowes Museum, County Durham) and was restored by Page & Park 1994 after compulsory purchase by Glasgow District Council. New retaining wall to forecourt terrace combined with modification and reorientation of staircases at ends designed by James Stevens Curl for William Whitfield in 1973 to allow for the widening of Great Western Road.

680-701 GREAT WESTERN ROAD / KERSLAND STREET

?New terrace of houses, c.1870-75

Walker

No documentary evidence

1-9 NORTHPARK TERRACE, 35-51 HAMILTON DRIVE, Hillhead

New terrace of nine houses, for William Henderson, 1863-65

Memorial; Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W*; BofS; Peter Reed, 'The Victorian Suburb' in Peter Reed, ed., Glasgow: The Forming of the City, Edinburgh 1993; List; Colin McKellar in ATSN no.(21) May 1998*

Built on the site of Northpark House between two pre-existing lengths of Hamiltonpark Terrace.

NORTH PARK

‡Unexecuted feuing plan for development, 1862

Plan in Mitchell

McFadzean

The plan was “prepared to shew a proposed improvement in the boundary between North Park Lands and the Botanic Garden.”

SESSIONAL SCHOOL, COLLEGE OPEN, HIGH STREET

†New schoolhouse, for Blackfriars Parish, 1854

Demolished 1870s?

Building Chronicle 5th June 1854 p.24; Builder 12th August 1854, p.425; Walker; Worsdall; McFadzean

According to the Builder, this was “a schoolhouse in the vicinity of the College Church, High-street, in the old Scottish style; architects, Messrs. Baird and Thomson.” The Building Chronicle noted that it was in a “style of architecture similar to that of the University, to which it is contiguous.” The 1st edition 1:500 Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1857, gives the plan of the class rooms of the ‘College School’ on a confined site to the south-west of the College Church, accessible from the College Open off the High Street. It lay just south of the buildings of the old College and was presumably removed along with them after the University debunked to Gilmorehill.

(off) HIGH STREET

‡Schematic proposal for tenements with glass-roofed streets for Glasgow City Improvement Trustees - see under IDEAL SCHEMES AND UNIDENTIFIED DESIGNS

HOLMWOOD HOUSE, see NETHERLEE ROAD, Cathcart

190-192 HOSPITAL STREET, Hutchesontown, see CALEDONIA ROAD CHURCH

DIXON STREET / HOWARD STREET, ST ENOCH SQUARE

Unexecuted design for warehouse partly in cast-iron, for John Blair, hatmaker, c.1851-52

Two elevation drawings in Mitchell

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, 'Early Cast-Iron Facades', Architectural Review cix, February 1951*; Law*; McFadzean*; G&W; AA*; McKean*; S&McK*; ATSN no.20 January 1998*

This remarkable and celebrated project for a warehouse with large areas of iron-framed glazing survives only in two drawings in the Mitchell Library collection. The dating is uncertain; but both are watermarked 1851 and one, labelled 'Elevation to Dixon Street' is signed 'Baird & Thomson' with the 112 Hope Street address, which the architects left in c.1853. The two elevations depict slightly different schemes, one with an additional floor, but both are in the same abstracted Grecian manner. The client also commissioned Baird & Thomson to build The Knowe in Albert Drive, Pollokshields, q.v.

For images, go here.

BLAIRS, 17-19 DIXON STREET / 32-38 HOWARD STREET, ST ENOCH SQUARE

†New warehouse with shops below, for John Blair, hatmaker, 1853

Demolished 1966

Survey drawings of 1901 by John Nisbet, architect, and of 1951 by James Bunyan, architect, in Glasgow City Archives in Mitchell

Worsdall; G&W; McFadzean; Dominic d'Angelo in ATSN no.20 January 1998*

As built, the warehouse for John Blair had solid stone facades, with a symmetrical range along Howard Street with a central porch; only a short range in Dixon Street was executed which may have been intended to continue further south. The low attic towers show the influence of von Klenze’s Propylaeum in Munich but the treatment of the corner panels below as an abstracted grid, responding to vertical and horizontal continuities, was quite novel while the handling of the curved corner was subtle and unusual. This would seem to have been Thomson’s first executed Grecian design as well as his first important urban building. It was later occupied by Cooper & Co., general merchants.

For images, go here.

WESTBOURNE TERRACE, 29-31 HYNDLAND ROAD

New terrace of 10 houses, for J.W. Anderson?, and David Clow, 1870-71

Memorial; Gildard; Worsdall; McFadzean*; G&W*; BofS; S&McK*; List

Built on land belonging to J.W. Anderson (see Great Western Terrace); four houses complete at 1871 census; nos.1 & 2 built by David Clow, no.3 was purchased by James Murdoch of Murdoch & Rodger, writers. A masterly, monumental essay in asymmetry within overall symmetry and the first terrace in which Thomson incorporated the bay window, at first floor level. Cast-iron railings and lamps restored 1994.

FOUNTAIN, KELVINGROVE PARK

‡Unexecuted competition design for Loch Katrine Monument, 1870

Building News 16th September 1870 pp.209; McFadzean; ATSN no.(21) May 1998*

An entry was submitted by ‘Athenian’ which was the pseudonym used by Thomson in the South Kensington Museum competition, q.v. The Glasgow correspondent of the Building News [Gildard?] was

“immediately attracted by a large drawing (about 10ft. by 7ft.) which, along with a number of smaller ones, illustrates a design in the greek style. It is under the motto 'Athenian,' but its author is at once identified as a gentleman who has long been celebrated for his successful treatment of that style. It consists of a basin 200ft. in diameter, round which lions are placed at intervals. On the stage above this are placed serpents, and above this again rises a Doric temple, measuring 42ft. across. This is surmounted by a second temple, surrounded by eagles, from the top of which rises, amid a cluster of palm leaves, a huge pole like the mast of a vessel, which, at the height of 100ft. from the ground, breaks out again into palm leaves, and, rising 20ft. or 30ft. higher, throws into the air a jet of water. From the base of this pole water is thrown into the outer basin in a circle about 100ft. in diameter. This design is the most imposing and, I may add, the most expensive.”

A elevation on tracing paper pasted into the sketchbook of Thomson's son John, begun in 1876, corresponds with the description of this lost design. In the event, no prize was awarded and, after a second competition, a rather more modest Stewart Memorial Fountain commemorating the introduction of water from Loch Katrine was designed by James Sellars and erected 1871-72.

'THE SIXTY STEPS', KELVINSIDE TERRACE WEST / QUEEN MARGARET PLACE

New public stairway and retaining wall, 1872

Daily Record 1936; Worsdall; Henry Brougham Morton, A Hillhead Album, Glasgow 1973*; McFadzean*; List

The new stairway - known as ‘The Sixty Steps’ - connected with the Queen Margaret Bridge or Walker's Bridge across the River Kelvin, erected in 1870 and demolished in 1970. Originally there were cast-iron lamps to the same exotic design as on the front of the Queen’s Park Church, q.v. removed during the Second World War as scrap-metal.

DARNLEY TERRACE, 98-130 KILMARNOCK ROAD, Shawlands

†?New terrace of five houses, 1854

Demolished c.1965

Attribution by Worsdall; in Tudor style. According to Mrs Stewart, who erroneously named the buildings Bute Terrace, Thomson and his family moved into No.4 from South Apsley Place in Hutchesontown in 1857 and lived here until the house in Moray Place, q.v., was ready - at the 1861 Census Thomson was at No.3 Darnley Terrace. In the recollections of Joanna Logie [National Trust for Scotland], 1994, she recalled her grandparents’ generation and how

“I would be shown houses which ‘father’ had built. They also taught me not to look at shops at street level but to look up at the architecture. And of course going into town on tramcars, the wonderful old tenements on Eglinton Street & down Cumberland St. which were slums by then. Also, Darnley Terrace in Shawlands where the shopping centre now stands and where they lived before Moray Place was built.”

GRANTLY TERRACE, 196-200 KILMARNOCK ROAD / 1 CARMENT DRIVE, Pollokshaws

?New block of tenements, or ‡unexecuted design for new tenements, 1878 or c.1861

Amelia

Single storey shops now built in front; subsequently balanced by a similar block on the opposite, south corner of Carment Drive; Nos 1 & 2 Grantly Terrace were occupied by the time of the 1881 Census and the plot had been feued to the firm of J. & T. Barrie in 1878, so making any attribution to Thomson rather than to Turnbull highly unlikely; yet “Grantly Terrace” was listed in the memoir apparently written by his daughter; the fact that it was not cited in the similar memoir prepared by the Revd John Stark for the Thomson Memorial implies that this was a mistake. The Charter of Novodamus of October 1877 by Sir William Stirling Maxwell and a Disposition in July 1861 by Sir John Maxwell to John Stewart suggests that Thomson might have been involved in earlier proposals to develop this site.

KING STREET, see GIBSON STREET

MARIA VILLA or DOUBLE VILLA, LANGSIDE, see MANSIONHOUSE ROAD

LANGSIDE ACADEMY, LANGSIDE AVENUE, see CAMPHILL AVENUE

QUEEN’S PARK U.P. CHURCH, LANGSIDE ROAD

†New church and hall, for Queen's Park United Presbyterian Church congregation, 1868-69

Builder: John McIntyre

£6,922:6:2d (including architects' fee of £314:5:0d)

Destroyed by enemy action, 24th March 1943.

Perspective (damaged) at GSA; measured drawings by A. Rollo 1899 & John Jeffrys 1930 at RCAHMS; drawing of the entrance by William J. Anderson in private collection: this was published as the frontispiece of his Architectural Studies in Italy, Glasgow 1890, as Anderson's measured drawings of the church, made in 1887, subsequently lithographed and now lost, won him the first Alexander Thomson Travelling Studentship.

Building News 7th February 1868 p.91 & 11th September 1868; British Architect 1st May 1874, p.282*; J. Logan Aikman, Historical Notices of the United Presbyterian Congregations in Glasgow, Glasgow 1875; Memorial; Building News 13th April 1888* & 27th April 1888*; Gildard; APSD; Evening Times 9th October 1893; Architecture, i, 1896, pp.58-60 (Anderson's drawing of entrance)*; Barclay*; Builder 31st December 1910*; Queen's Park East United Free Church Glasgow Jubilee Book 1867-1917, Glasgow 1918*; Glasgow Herald 22nd December 1924*; Andrew L. Drummond, The Church Architecture of Protestantism, Edinburgh 1934*; Glasgow Herald 25th March 1943*; British Weekly 27th May 1943; Law*; Stewart; Francis Worsdall, '"Greek" Thomson', Scottish Field, cxxiii, February 1962*; Worsdall; Crook*; G&W*; McFadzean*; Frank Worsdall, The City That Disappeared, Glasgow 1981*; Michael Donnelly, Glasgow Stained Glass, a preliminary study, Glasgow 1981; AA*; McKean*; Sally Joyce Rush in S&McK*; Dominic d'Angelo in ATSN no.9 February 1994*, no.19 August 1997*; Glendinning, MacInnes & MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture, Edinburgh 1996*

Thomson’s most extraordinary, inventive and richly decorated church. Congregation founded in 1866; the church was built for 1,200 sittings in 1868-69 following the appointment of the Revd William Sprott as minister in 1867 [see Craigton Cemetery]. Early in 1868, the author of ‘Gossip from Glasgow’ in the Building News [Gildard?], in discussing the “Battle of the Styles,” recorded that “we are to have a competition strictly limited - limited not as to ‘natural selection,’ but as to style, ‘Grecian or Gothic’ having been discovered by some United Presbyterians to be the only style worthy of such a building as a church.” This presumably referred to the Queen’s Park Church as he later noted that, “in the battle of the styles Greek has just accomplished another rather considerable triumph...” as, in the competition, “Messrs. Thomson entered Greek, and, notwithstanding all the eloquence that has been expended in enforcing again and again that Gothic is the only style for churches, the Classic conquered” (although the design was as much Egyptian as Greek).

The church was opened in November 1869; Aikman noted that, “besides the ordinary galleries at each side and at one end, there is a gallery behind the platform, and a second tier opposite. The artificial lighting is peculiar. The platform is lighted by candelabra, but the body of the Church by jets, projecting, at intervals of seven inches, from piping laid on two sides, and one end along the entablature. The interior finishing is wholly of wood, no plaster whatever being in any part of the building, and, with the exception of an ornament over each door to the platform, there is no carving. The decoration is obtained by designs in colour, from drawings by the architects. The effect of the interior is rich and harmonious, and is among the best expressions in this country of the spirit of Greek art.” The font was the work of J.& G. Mossman and the polychromatic interior decoration together with the stained glass windows carried out in collaboration with Daniel Cottier.

In 1893 the Glasgow Evening Times recorded that Ford Madox Brown had seen inside the church in 1883 and said that “I want nothing better than the religion that produced art like that. Here line and colouring are suggestive of Paradise itself... Well done Glasgow! I put... this Thomson-Cottier church above everything I have seen in modern Europe.” The glazing above the entrance consisted of two continuous strips of glass, the inner one patterned, with virtually no mullions, placed between and independent of the free-standing stone columns on the outside and the two internal rows of thin iron internal columns which supported the dome: “Who else would have dared to carry that heavy stone dome, or whatever you call the object that crowns the church, on clusters of iron columns coming down through a gallery,” Henry-Russell Hitchcock wrote to Graham Law in 1950. In 1880 the interior was altered by Alexander Skirving to accommodate an organ and an additional hall built to the rear of the church; interior restored 1884? W.J. Anderson’s measured drawings of the church were exhibited at South Kensington and at the Glasgow Exhibition in 1888. In 1900 it became the Queen's Park East United Free Church and in 1929 Queen's Park St George's Church. In 1924 the organ was reconstructed and enlarged with a new organ screen and the interior decoration restored under the direction of Thomson's son John together with his older sister Elizabeth Forrest:

“In the decoration of the building the original scheme of outline and colouring has been faithfully copied, lavish use being made of the Greek key, the honeysuckle flower, and lotus leaf. On the front of the gallery there is a beautiful example of eastern ornamentation in the combination of honeysuckle and lotus in varied forms, the length of it being relieved at intervals by panels of gold, centred with rosettes of honeysuckle. In the roof the colouring of the flat beam at the edge is a very early form of Egyptian ornament, while the centre of the roof represents the azure sky with a multitude of stars. This symbol of the open heavens is also found under the vestibule. The roofs over and under the gallery are embellished with bright ornamentation, and the whole scheme gives a strikingly beautiful effect.”

The destruction of this church by incendiary bombs was Scotland's worst architectural loss of the Second World War; William Power wrote to Graham Law in 1949 that “it might have escaped destruction but for the fact that when it was built there was a plasterers’ strike on so the building was completely lined with wood, which went up in a wild blaze.”

For images and further information, go here.

For a talk given on the fiftieth anniversary of the church's destruction, go here.

LILYBANK HOUSE, see 40 BUTE GARDENS