Tenements

Glasgow Tenements

 

Right now, 20th May 2020, we are all experiencing more time at home. For many days have slowed down and life outside has almost in its entirety come to a standstill allowing us to become reflective of the spaces we inhabit. There is a new and acute awareness of our surroundings within the walls of home. For us Glaswegians, this time will most likely be spent in one of the many tenements which dominate the city’s built environment.

 

Tenements have been part of Glasgow’s landscape since it developed from a fishermen’s town to a trade city, however, the traditional Scottish tenement did not originate in Glasgow, as we would like to believe, but in the fortified cities of Stirling and Edinburgh. As architect John Joseph Burns comments in his publication ‘Tenement, An Architectural History’, “the need for defensible wall cities such as Edinburgh and Stirling…led to small compact cities with little scope to expand beyond the walls and produced a vertical form of housing”.

 

Burns goes on to explain that the success of the tenement in Scotland was due to the damp climate, making elevated buildings off the ground more pragmatic, and Scotland’s abundant supply of stone allowed for structurally sound, tall buildings.

 

Tenement Style

 

During the rapid growth of Glasgow during the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, the tenement made room for the huge influx of people that were turning to the city to work. As Glasgow’s landscape changed so too did the traditional style of the Scottish Vernacular Tenement.

 

 

In his publication, Burns documents this gradual change through an informative timeline of key tenement styles from its origins on the High St, Gallowgate and Saltmarket to the east and west and of course here to the South as small suburbs were swallowed up by an ever-growing city boundary.

 

Scottish Vernacular Style

 

It is interesting to compare the Scottish Vernacular Style, typified by its turnpike staircases, small windows and subdivided rooms with the examples of tenements in the Southside which were typically built in from the 1850s – 1920s. Over the years improved living conditions, application of regulations, and the development of a middle class have pushed the tenement into a living arrangement which is still popular today.

 

 

Glasgow Style

 

One of the most noticeable changes between the Scottish Vernacular and the later ‘Glasgow style’ is the availability of light. Early tenement construction of the 16th Century and 17th Century were typified by small windows, and one window was often the sole natural light source of a single flat or ‘single-end’. By the 20th Century, the Glasgow bay window found in tenements across areas such as Battlefield, Cathcart, Mount Florida and Pollokshields gave a generous source of light to its occupants.

 

 

It is arguable that this gradual architectural switch from small to large windows happened in Scotland as the price of glass cheapened and the population moved from working predominantly outdoors to indoors. As more of the population worked long hours in the many factories of industrial Glasgow, the need to be exposed to sunlight within the home became essential. Large windows to the front and back of the tenement helped the building to breathe, as well as its inhabitants, and helped to prevent mould and rot.

 

Architectural Tricks

 

Moreover, little architectural tricks such as ventilating windows in the larders and storage cupboards helped circulate air from the close into individual flats; no doubt, however causing draughts through windy Scottish winters! Light and air were key to the tenement and its inhabitants’ wellbeing.

 

Regulations in 1862 set by General Improvement and Police Scotland prevented ‘backland’ tenement building. ‘Backlands’ were tenements built behind those at street front and put pressure on communal facilities such as toilets, washhouses and ash pits as well as blocking natural light. Building regulations also meant that tenements height were restricted in relation to the width of the street and ensured appropriate space between more housing and the backcourt.

 

Supply of clean water and communal inside toilets followed, and even though by today’s standards these early regulations leave much to be desired, it did mean that the tenement became an attractive form of housing to Glasgow’s growing middle class. A wealthier marketplace resulted in more elaborate examples, with decorative features both externally and internally.

 

Various tenement styles can be found all over Glasgow’s Southside. A cluster of Glasgow’s celebrated architect Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson’s tenements can be found in chapter five of our book South Glasgow Heritage Trails: A Guide covering Shawlands, Strathbungo and Crossmyloof, centred around Salisbury Quadrant/Crescent and Nithsdale Drive. Though built after Thomson’s death in 1875, the convex building of Salisbury Quadrant showcases stone ornaments typical of Thomson’s Neo Grecian style and has particularly beautifully decorated corbels above the doors.

 

Thomson’s tenements were dotted over the Southside to accommodate a growing middle and upper-middle class who could commute across the Clyde into the city. During the 1960s / ’70s the tenements beside Thomson’s Caledonia Road Church (1856 -1857) were demolished as part of the Bruce Report initiative which aimed to create a modern post-war Glasgow, as well as examples along Eglinton St (1858) (formally Queen’s Park Terrace). Thankfully, however, many examples of Thomson’s tenements survive and can be found on Walmer Crescent in Ibrox, Darnley Street and Nithsdale Road in Strathbungo, and elsewhere. They display Thomson’s typical classical restraint with repetitive palmette motifs, pilasters and architraves carved from local blonde sandstone.

 

Victorian Era Tenements

 

The tenements along Queen’s Drive on the northern side of Queen’s Park show how different styles developed during the Victorian Era; while Thomson was inspired by Greek and Roman architecture, W.M Whyte takes inspiration from French Renaissance architecture. This French Renaissance Revival is typified by ​‘steep pitched roofs, or mansard roofs, often covered in slate tiles and dormer windows, small projecting spaces that stick out from the roof often with a vertical window. Buildings will often have large chimneys, cylindrical towers and turrets, small towers near the roofline. The towers and turrets might have circular tapering roofs topped with decorative elements. 

 

All of these features can be seen in Whyte’s tenement block on Queen’s Drive; decorative elements include the popular acanthus and a sculpture of what is believed to be Liberty, associating it further with the French revival style.

 

Burns suggests Queen’s Drive is ‘a prime example of the newly emerged Glasgow Freestyle that allowed the incorporation of various influences, yet shared standard features with other tenements of the time.’

 

 

Art Nouveau

 

Camphill Avenue (1903) on the opposite side of Queen’s Park shows yet another style adopted into the Glasgow Tenement form. Designed by architect John Campbell McKellar – who designed 640 buildings between 1890 and the early 1900s mostly in Glasgow’s West End (in fact an almost exact floor plan can be found in Hyndland) – Camphill Avenue takes inspiration from Art Nouveau.

 

The eye is drawn upwards through elongated windows and arched features. Stained glass in Art Nouveau style flood closes with warm yellow light, and small square windows in the front and back doors are reminiscent of Mackintosh. Care has also been taken to include intricate floral details in the buildings’ air grilles; some original examples still remain today.

 

 

 

Wally Closes

 

Decoration, though, was not only reserved for the finest of Glasgow’s tenements. Examples of decorative features which serve to enhance the experience of our home can be seen across our tenement stock, including most famously in the ‘wally close’. W​ally -​ as in china or pottery – along the close were added for hygienic reasons, however they also tell a story of which street or block the building is on, or what era it belongs to.

 

 

Before the closure of Glasgow clay pipe factories in the 1960s those without formally tiled closes would at times decorate their own. 

 

“Each tenant or owner on each stair landing was obliged to take her turn of washing the stair on a Friday night. This was done by dissolving pipe clay in the wash bucket, giving the surface of the stair stone a thin film of either red or white pipe clay. The process was usually finished by decorating the edges of the stairs with the solid block of pipe clay, the chalked pattern lasting for a week until the next resident took her ‘turn of the stair’. Many women were at great pains to draw distinctive patterns – sometimes loops or zig-zags or even flowers – which were locally recognisable as theirs.”

 

 People’s Pictures: The Story of Tiles in Glasgow. Elspeth King. 

 

 

 

This picture taken recently on Bolton Drive shows tenement pride is alive and well with hand-drawn decoration filling in the spaces where tiles have been damaged.

 

 

It’s clear that by the late 1880s Glasgow had confidently adopted the tenement as their own. It is a relationship which continued to develop and grow throughout the 20th Century and has seen many iterations based on its three to five-storey form whether in white sandstone or red, concrete or brick.

 

Tenement Maintenance and Improvement

 

However, tenements were and at times can still be difficult places to live in. Poor management, substandard building materials, lack of regular maintenance or adherence to building regulations resulted in poor standards of living for many in the 20th Century. Residents campaigned for their improvement, and in 1971 Assist Architects worked with Govan Housing on 10 Luath St to initiate improvements using a bottom-up approach after the Great Storm.

 

Since those times, we have continued to adapt and change the tenement to suit our needs and improve our lives, changing bed recesses for indoor bathrooms or open plan kitchens looking out to the living rooms. Closes and backyards remain a place of communal interaction as people navigate shared space, what to do with it, how to maintain it and how to make the best of it. I feel lucky to be sharing one of these special spaces and find comfort in knowing that many of us though isolated are somewhat together, with our neighbours above and below, awkwardly meeting in stairwells and sharing messages of care.

 

 

Tenements and the COVID-19 lockdown

 

As the lockdown response to COVID-19 continues and evolves, South Glasgow Heritage & Environment Trust (SGHET) is seeking to build a picture of the resilience of local city life south of the Clyde as our diverse communities adapt locally to the global pandemic – with public input. Read our lockdown project blog post.

To piece together the new experiences, habits and feelings of the moment, SGHET is inviting residents of South Glasgow to share photos from everyday life on social media – images captured by Southsiders that reflect how their lives are being re-shaped and neighbourhood moods and activities are changing in this new situation.

Images can be shared on social media using the hashtags #SouthsideLockdownLens or #SouthGlasgowLockdown – or by emailing SGHET direct (info@sghet.com). How are Southsiders making the new norms of social distancing, social isolation, working/studying/schooling from home (and other new realities) manageable… what’s keeping you afloat, giving you hope, helping you cope and get through this?

 

By Sarah Diver

 

Sources: 

John Joseph Burns: Tenement, An Architectural History. Published by Glasgow City Heritage Press 2019.
People’s Pictures: The Story of Tiles in Glasgow, Elspeth King. Published by Glasgow Museums 1991
Assist Architects: The Tenement Handbook A Practical Guide to Living in a Tenement. Published by RIAS 1992
South Glasgow Heritage Trails: A Guide, South Glasgow Heritage & Environment Trust, 2019.
Scotcities​ Gerald Blaikie
Bygone Bungo Blog Andrew Downie