Every step you take...

Another rainy day and Monday in Glasgow "The Day".
Was kind of wandering around like some kind of lonely clown, so decided to take a walk through the Merchant City. Somewhere I probably know pretty well. But wanted to see if I could find out something new.
And I did ... every day a school day...

My route took me down Glassford Street, along Wilson Street then along Bell Street to High Street and back.

First thing as usual was to jump in the old Tardis to get me there. But what went wrong with the colour??!!??

Well here was my first lesson for the day. Glasgow Police boxes were ... red!! Not blue!!
London police boxes were blue.
Glasgow had 323 police boxes. That is more than 10 boxes for every square mile.


Back to the tour of Glassford Street. Now Glassford Street was names after John Glassford, one of Glasgow's great merchants.His town house, Shawfield Mansion, was here. He is actually buried in the graveyard of Ramshorn Church that I visited a couple of weeks ago in Ingram Street.
And the building above is the grandest on Glassford Street. It is the Trades' House which was the meeting place of the Incorporated Trades of Glasgow. It was designed by Robert Adam in 1794. This facade is Adam's only remaining work in Glasgow.

Wee bit further down Glassford Street and the sign for the Blane Valley pub made me chuckle. I had never noticed this wee guy drunk over the barrel before. :)

Just a wee view down Glassford Street looking towards the mighty Marks and Spencers. Everyone in Glasgow has bought underwear at some point from this shop!! :)
Reading a wee bit of the history here and Marks seems to be sitting on the site of the old City of Glasgow Bank. This bank failed in 1878 and brought ruin to many in the city. The directors, manager and secretary were arrested with the charge of having cooked the books.

Any of that sound familiar?? :)

This may seem like a strange photo to post up. But it does somewhat dominate the middle of Glassford Street now. The Glasshouse. Most of which is a car park. Now I'm undecided if I like this building or not. Not really an attempt to fit in the the architecture of the Trades' House is it? But something about the lines of it when the sun was shining through the rain kind of appealed to me today. Maybe not a bad looking building for a car park?

Now on in Wilson Street. Which is dominated by a different building altogether. The Old Sheriff court. This is the other side from the one I posted when walking down Ingram Street. Really is a fantastic building. And now contains the cleverly named Citation bar.

Now along to cross over Candelriggs. This is a wee photo of Candelriggs in the rain today looking up towards the Ramshorn church. Really is such a cool place to hang out these days. Especially in the evening.
Candelriggs seems to have gotten it's name from a candleworks that used to be near the Ramshorn church. It was built on farm land or riggs hence the name.

And here is a photo of Merchant Square which has been transformed into a cool indoor bar, restaurant complex. It used to be the main fruitmarket in Glasgow and you can still see the fruit bowl on the top of the building.

This is the City Halls building at the back of the fruit market. This was built as a entertainment venue and has seemingly hosted Charles Dickins and Oscar Wilde. This is now home to the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. I have actually been here to see Kieran Docherty that I mentioned in the High Street post. Was a fantastic night and a great venue.

Now we get on to why this is one of the best areas to hang out of an evening. So many great bars and restaurants. Can't even hope to post photos of them all. Above is the City Merchant which I have been to many times, particularly from work as they do a good line in traditional Scottish food and it good to take visitors there. They do have a great haggis here!

In Bell Street itself. Blackfriars. Couldn't have done this blog without at some point mentioning Blackfriars. This is the pub to meet in when you going out in the Merchant City. Probably been in this pub more than any other pub in Glasgow.

The Blackfriars part I explained in the High Street post. It is due to there used to be a Dominican monastery near here.

The famous Cafe Gandolfi in Albion Street. I have never actually been in here but it is such a famous landmark in this area felt strange not to include it in the list of great bars and restaurants.
The Merchant City is definitely my favourite area of the city for dining out.

Going to hop back to Blackfriars for a minute. Because it has a new neighbour.
Right next door is the Glasgow Police Museum. It just moved here in the last few months from it's previous location next to St. Andrews church. I had never visited here before and really liked it. Has a great mix of the history of the force, characters that served on the force, famous crimes and a selection of uniforms from police forces around the world.

Did you know that Glasgow had the first actual police force in the UK forming in 1800? The Metropolitan Police were formed 29 years after the Glasgow Police.

Some interesting items from within the museum. Some clappers and rattles that were used before the police were issued with whistles.

A exibit telling the story of the theft of the Stone of Destiny. This is the copy used in the filming of the recent movie.

Reward poster for information on the explosion at the Gasometers at Tradeston in 1883.

The uniform evolving over the years. This is from the 1940's. The gas mask is on the wall behind.

A Mountie always gets his man. Some of the selection of uniforms from around the world. This is of course the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

To find out more about this museum and the collection visit here:
http://www.policemuseum.org.uk/

Almost came to the end of the tour then noticed this sign down an alleyway. It was Tontine Lane. As well as this neon sign there was also a neon sign for the old Mitre Bar.

There disn't seem to be any good reason for these signs to be here.

The strange thing about this Empire sign is that you can only see it correctly in it's reflection in the mirror.

Turns out when I checked later that this is an artwork by Douglas Gordon. It really is quite striking and a bit bonkers in a way. Worth finding Tontine Lane if you are in the area.

I will need to come up here some evening and see if I can get a photo of it lit up.

Well did learn a number of new things today despite it being a familiar part of town.

Was now time to get out of the Glasgow rain again and head for home.

Be well, be happy!!