Hot in the city, hot in the city "The Day"...

It was hot in the city "The Day". Not a nice sunny heat, but a bit overcast, sticky, humid heat. Not a good day for walking around or sitting in an office.

So despite that decided to go for a tour down Ingram Street on my way to the Penna office. :)

Now Ingram Street for me is just one of those streets in Glasgow. It's not one of the important ones like Buchanan, Sauchiehall, St. Vincent, Argyle... just a street. I even used to work around the corner from here in George Street. But went there today because got a recommendation to go see Ramshorn Church. So went to see if there was indeed something special about Ingram Street.

This is what I found "The Day"...

Well as usual I'll start with the name of the street. Well it seems Ingram Street was originally called Black Cow Loan (cool name) because it eventually led to the grazing grounds at Cowcaddens. It was renamed in 1781 in honour of Archibald Ingram (another cool name) who was one of Glasgow's leading tobacco lords. He was elected Provost of Glasgow in 1762 and 1763.

So starting at the Ramshorn church. Thank you for the recommendation because this was a lovely surprise for me. Not so much the church which is a lovely building built which dates from 1824. It replaced the original church that stood here since 1720. This has not been actually been a church since 1982 when it was sold to Strathclyde University and it is now their Ramshorn Theatre.
Why Ramshorn ? The story goes that a thief stole a ram from St. Mungo's flock and cut of it's head. The head then stuck to his hand and was impossible to remove so the thief had to confess his sin. St. Mungo gave him absolution and also the ram as a gift. The site of this was then called Land of the Ramshorn and that is where this church is built.

But the lovely surprise was the graveyard behind the church. This is an idyllic, quiet haven in the middle of the city surrounded now by tall buildings on 3 sides making it into almost a courtyard.
This is seemingly the oldest graveyard in the city. And the graves are a who's who on some of the great names that formed the city.

A number of the graves are covered in grills to prevent grave robbers. And there is a lovely little memorial rose garden right in the middle producing the most amazing scent. A number of people were in the graveyard today eating lunch.

Another interesting feature was this plaque on the side of the church. It commemorates Sir John Macdonald who was born in the Ramshorn Parish and went on to be first prime minister of Cananda.

Strathclyde University have a great history online for the church here :http://www.strath.ac.uk/culture/ramshorn/info/index.html

Next building that caught my eye was this one with the strange corner turret. This was seemingly just a warehouse built in 1854 for J & W Campbell.



Next building up is the old Sheriff court dating from 1842. This grand old building is now home to bars, restaurants, apartments and the Scottish Youth Theatre.

Now this is an instantly recognisable building in Glasgow. I've passed it many times. But what is it ?
It is Hutcheson Hall and faces down Hutcheson Street. The Hutchesons were two brothers, George and Thomas, who founded Hutchesons' Hospital in 1639 to provide shelter for several poor, aged tradesmen and a school for a dozen orphan boys.(This was the forerunner of Hutcheson's Grammar School).
When Hutcheson Street was formed the old hospital was demolished. This building, Hutcheson Hall, was built in 1805 to replace the old hospital. The 2 statues are of the Hutcheson brothers and were actually salvaged from the original hospital building.

And across John Street is the trendy Italian Centre.
This was remodelled in 1991 transforming derelict early 19th Century tenements into a very stylish mixture of apartments, shops, cafes and restaurants.

As I said I used to work around the corner from here and a beer after work at the pavement cafes in John Street was not unheard of :)

But it's been years since been round here and never really bothered to study the central courtyard before. It's amazing what this blog is doing to me!!

Couple of views of the central courtyard with it's unusual and beautiful scupltures, fountain, rill and cafes.

And these statues really caught my eye. They just make your imagination go wild. What are the man and the dog looking for? You can't help but also look up.

And then I realised these must be from the same artist as the "man and bird" which I took a photo of the other day behind Princess Square. Remember that one?

Well they are. The artist is Shona Kinloch. This statue is called Thinking of Bella. The one beside Princess Square is called As Proud As...
http://glasgowsculpture.com/pg_biography.php?sub=kinloch_s

I really love these statues now. Also says she has some work up on Garnethill. Looks like I need to go back there look for that now.

This is the statue on top of the Italian Centre of the God Mercury. And the mercury was certainly high today. Did I mention just how warm it now was ??

So fortunately the next stop on the tour was the Jigsaw building. Now I featured this one before in the Virginia Street post as it's side is onto Virginia Lane. This building was built between 1894 - 1900 for the Trustees Savings Bank (TSB). As been mentioned before the outside has beautiful sculptures showing it's role as a bank. It is now the Jigsaw clothes shop. And the reason it was a good place to stop next is that I went inside today to see the decor and the ceiling has loads of fans!! Coolest place in Glasgow!! And actually pretty cool to look at as well...

This building is also something special on the inside. The dome you see from the outside has glass panels which let in so much natural light. And the roof details are amazing. A really great place for Jigsaw to present their goods and must be a terrific place to work in.

And the nice Jigsaw people let me have a sneaky peek in the currently unused fitting room that used to be the bank board room. How amazing does this look ? The fireplace is stunning. If they ever do a top 10 fitting rooms in the world then this is number 1.

Just along the road is another very special building. This is now the Corinthian bar, restaurant, nightclub and venue. But it used to be the head office of the Union Bank. The front of this building is covered in statues each representing some aspect of industry or nationhood plus the names of all the towns that had a branch of the bank.

Once again got a chance to get some photos inside. This is the bar area... that window at the rear is the one that faces down Virginia Street.

And here is the restaurant. Once again was great to see inside these special buildings. Up till now on this blog been loving just looking at the special architecture of Glasgow from the street but more and more am realising that that is less than half the story.

And one of the great things about Ingram Street is that the whole time you are walking down it the Gallery of Modern Art with Wellington (Arthur and Copenhagen to you and me :) ) is right in front of you looking down the street framed by the buildings in Queen Street. Another very special building that I need to cover another day. And yes if you look closely the cone was there. :)

So nothing interesting about Ingram Street ? Just another street ?
Well I got my eyes opened today. Maybe it's just that in the centre of Glasgow with so much history there just aren't any ordinary streets ?

Hope you enjoyed this wee tour along this "ordinary" street. Thank you for the recommendation on the Ramshorn church. I owe you one.

And finally ... Andy mania definitely building ... he's in the semi final now!!

Go Andy!! Pride of Scotland!!

Be well, be happy!!