Big Picture Feed

Queen Margaret Drive

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:21:32 +0000

On 6 March 1923, Station 5SC began broadcasting from an attic in Rex House, 202 Bath Street, Glasgow as part of the British Broadcasting Company (which became ‘Corporation’ in 1926). This small space – which would often be used to house an orchestra, pipe band, choir, solo singers, actors and speech-makers – was BBC Scotland.

Lord Reith, the BBC's founder, chose Glasgow as the Scottish starting point due to the size of the potential audience, but by the end of 1924 'relay stations' had also opened in Belmont Street, Aberdeen (2BD), Lochee Road, Dundee (2DE) and George Street, Edinburgh (2EH). The output from stations 2BD and 2EH were clearly picked up in the United States during International Radio Week in November 1924.

In 1936, Glasgow's BBC Scotland base moved to Queen Margaret Drive, a site which includes two distinctly individual buildings by two of Glasgow's greatest architects. The earliest is North Park House, built in 1869 to the design of J.T. Rochead as a country mansion and private gallery for the brothers John and Matthew Bell, who owned the Glasgow Pottery at Port Dundas. In 1884 the house was acquired by Queen Margaret College, the first college for women in Scotland, and in 1895, the College began building Britain's first women's medical school on the site, designed by architects Honeyman and Keppie, and an associate, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The college closed in 1935 and principal architect James Miller began adapting the Glasgow site for BBC Scotland in 1936, allowing for the site’s buildings to be used in the production, administration and broadcasting of BBC Scotland's radio, television and – latterly – interactive programmes.

In 2007, after more than 70 years of continuous broadcasting, BBC Scotland left Queen Margaret Drive for a new broadcast centre at Pacific Quay, with the old site currently undergoing conversion to residential use. Queen Margaret Drive lies within the Glasgow West Conservation Area and the Mackintosh Building, Queen Margaret College and Miller’s 1930s extension are all Category B listed.

17 February 2010: Burrard Inlet, Vancouver

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:11:12 +0000

Erskine Beveridge was the owner of a Dunfermline based company that specialised in the production of fine table and bed linen. A wealthy and influential man, Beveridge was an enthusiastic historian and archaeologist and would become one of the finest amateur photographers of his generation. Fascinated by landscapes, boats, buildings and archaeological monuments, Beveridge’s images are not just fine, well composed representations of their subjects, but also convey a sense of what made the places he visited meaningful to him, a quality which transforms many of his photographs into real works of art.

In March 1885, Beveridge sailed to New York, where his business was thriving and a warehouse had been established to house goods for distribution. From New York, he travelled extensively around North America and Canada, taking photographs throughout his journey of locations ranging from Missouri and Colorado to British Columbia – including this image of Burrard Inlet, part of what is now modern day Vancouver.

An exhibition of Erskine Beveridge photography will be on display at the Dunfermline Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum from 1 March to 3 May 2010.

10 February 2010: Craigcrook Castle

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:15:39 +0000

Craigcrook Castle in Edinburgh's Blackhall area hosted some of the most exclusive gatherings in the history of Scotland's cultural life. Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen and Alfred Lord Tennyson all came to cultural ‘salons’ at Craigcrook, drawn by invitations from the Castle’s prestigious tenants, who included publishers, writers, politicians, judges and newspaper editors.

Dating back to 1542, the Castle has been occupied by publisher Archibald Constable, lawyer and literary critic Lord Francis Jeffrey and Sir John Hall, a Lord Provost of Edinburgh. It was announced this week that Craigcrook, which was extended by the renowned architect William Playfair in the nineteenth century, will become the new home for the archive of the impresario Richard Demarco. Co-founder of Edinburgh’s Traverese Theatre, Demarco has amassed a huge collection of paintings, drawings, photographs, catalogues and other memorabilia from the worlds of art and culture. Highlights of the archive include the most comprehensive record of the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe, drawings and paintings of Sir Sean Connery, who was a model for Mr Demarco when he was a student at Edinburgh College of Art, and photographs charting the creation of Little Sparta, Ian Hamilton Finlay's famous sculpture garden in Lanarkshire.

The image here was taken in 1900 by the photographer Henry Bedford Lemere and shows the ornate sitting room of Craigcrook.

3 February 2010: Ardersier

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:53:03 +0000

The Ardersier fabrication yard was closed in 2002 after almost 30 years of constant activity. At its peak, over 3,000 people worked on the site in the construction of offshore platforms for the oil industry.

Situated at Whiteness on the Moray Firth, Ardersier was previously owned by J Ray McDermott, and is currently scheduled to be redeveloped for housing. The main fabrication building was over 100 feet high and covered eight acres, and for a time was the largest of its kind in Europe. In 2006, before work commenced on dismantling and demolishing the yard, RCAHMS building survey team visited Ardersier to photograph the site and record its significance to Scotland’s industrial heritage.

This week it was announced that a charity concert, headlined by veteran rock band Status Quo, is to be held at Ardersier to raise money for the Highland Hospice. A two-day event in May, it is thought that the concert, called Rock 4 Life, will attract over 20,000 people to the area.

27 January 2010: The Lawnmarket

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:53:45 +0000

It was originally one of the great open spaces within Edinburgh's city walls, known as the 'Land Market' where street traders or 'lawn merchants' sold produce from the land on market day. A broad plaza, it was the residence of rich and poor alike, with the wealthier citizens occupying the middle storeys of the towering tenements, from where they could observe the busy street scenes below. Before the formation of Johnston Terrace, the Lawnmarket’s West Bow was the main entrance to the city from the south west.

On January 28 1828, it is reputed that 25,000 people attended the hanging of William Burke on the Lawnmarket. William Burke and William Hare were two Irish immigrants who devised a scheme of murdering their victims in order to supply the corpses for medical dissection in exchange for money. In total it is thought that they passed 17 bodies on to Dr Robert Knox, a private anatomy lecturer whose students were drawn from Edinburgh Medical College.

Although Burke and Hare were arrested after a year of disappearances had raised suspicions, the evidence against the pair was still not overwhelming. Lord Advocate Sir William Rae offered Hare immunity from prosecution if he confessed and agreed to testify against Burke. Hare's testimony led to Burke's death sentence in December 1828. Burke was hanged the following month, after which he was publicly dissected at the Edinburgh Medical College. His skeleton, death mask, and items made from his tanned skin are still on display at the College's museum.

20 January 2010: Cape Wrath Lighthouse

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:19:10 +0000

The current occupant of the Keeper’s cottage at Cape Wrath Lighthouse was able to return home this week, 30 days after travelling to Inverness to buy a Christmas turkey. The recent severe weather conditions had made one of the UK’s most remote locations completely inaccessible.

Situated in Sutherland, on the north-western tip of mainland Britain, the remote Lighthouse can only be reached by ferry across the Kyle of Durness, and then along a single track road for a further 12 miles. The 20m-high Lighthouse tower is built of hand dressed stone, and the rest of the building is made up of large blocks of granite quarried from nearby Clash Carnoch. Standing at the edge of some of the highest sea-cliffs to be found in the British Isles, Cape Wrath’s beacon is over 120m above sea level, and has a range of 24 miles.

The Lighthouse was converted to automatic status on 31 March 1998, and is now remotely monitored from the Northern Lighthouse Board’s offices in Edinburgh.

RCAHMS are currently running a year-long project in Cape Wrath called Defending the Past. Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Defence Estates, the project is encouraging access, enjoyment and understanding of the built heritage of the region by the local community and the thousands of NATO troops who visit the training area each year to undertake military exercises.

13 January 2010: St Mungo’s Cathedral

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:31:45 +0000

St Mungo’s Cathedral – also known as Glasgow Cathedral – is the best preserved example of a medieval church to have survived the Reformation.

The Cathedral's origins date back to about AD 550 when St Mungo founded a religious community around a small church in a location just to the east of what is now Glasgow city centre. Today this church is the site of the Blacader aisle in the lower church of the Cathedral.

During St Mungo’s time the church was visited by St Columba, and St Mungo himself travelled widely, preaching in both Cumbria and North Wales, and going on pilgrimage to Rome. After his death on 13 January AD 614, St Mungo was buried close to his church. Today his tomb lies in the centre of the Cathedral’s lower choir, reputedly on the actual site of his grave.

The original church was built of wood, and it was not until 1136 that the first stone church was consecrated on the site in the presence of King David I. The earliest significant parts of what can be seen today are the walls of the nave, up to the level of the bottoms of the windows. These date back to the next round of rebuilding, in the early 1200s. In the mid 1200s much of the rest of the Cathedral appeared: in particular the upper and lower choirs were added to the east end of the nave.

Although the Reformation saw the removal of many decorative features from St Mungo’s Cathedral, it remains today as a grand medieval building at the heart of Scotland’s largest city.

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6 January 2010: St Fort House, Fife

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:44:32 +0000

It was announced this week that the Royal Caledonian Curling Club are hoping to stage an outdoor ‘Grand Match’ for the first time in 30 years.

Curlers have begun to mark out rinks on the Lake of Menteith near Aberfoyle, which has not frozen sufficiently for curling since 2001. The Grand Match is a curling tournament held between clubs in the north and south of Scotland. The last such match also took place on the Lake of Menteith in 1979, with the one prior to that occurring in 1963.

This image, from RCAHMS large collection of archive photography, shows the Curling Club of St Fort House in 1895. St Fort house was designed by the renowned architect William Burn in 1829 and was built for Captain Robert Stewart, who had purchased the estate in 1795 from the Nairnes of Sandfurd. Burn designed a large baronial mansion with every modern convenience. The grounds featured estate buildings and services typical of the time, including greenhouses, stables, staff cottages, gardens – and the curling pond pictured here.

St Fort would go on to share the fate of many grand country houses during the 1950s and 1960s, and was demolished in 1953.

30 December 2009: Glasgow Airport

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:18:05 +0000

Over the next two years Glasgow airport will undergo a £25m expansion to improve facilities for passengers and increase traffic access to the site.

The planned developments include work on the airport road system, a new food court, a new runway lighting system and upgrades to the airfield taxiway.

Glasgow airport officially opened on 2 May 1966. The first terminal building, a rectangular block with a distinctive chunky concrete barrel-vaulted roof, was designed by the renowned architect Sir Basil Spence. Originally two long corridors, or piers, extended from the terminal to take passengers to and from their flights. Over the years the building has been altered, largely obscuring the original design.

RCAHMS holds the Sir Basil Spence archive, a unique collection of architectural drawings, sketches, files, photographs, news cuttings, models and personal papers accumulated over Spence’s lifetime. Included in the Archive is the first letter from the Ministry of Aviation from May 1961 offering Spence Glover & Ferguson the job to design the Glasgow terminal. At this time Spence, architect of the nearly-completed Coventry Cathedral, was highly regarded, but had never designed an airport before. The Archive also contains notes that he and Ferguson made while on a whirlwind tour of four European airports during which they compiled their thoughts on how airports worked and how services like luggage conveyor belts and check-in desks might fit into their design. Spence's original designs for the terminal proposed thick, glass-plate zigzag walls on all four sides. It was decided, however, that these would be too expensive and the concept was dropped.

In total, the Sir Basil Spence Archive contains 56 drawings, 67 photographs and three manuscript folders containing correspondence and news cuttings on Glasgow Airport.

Drummond Castle Gardens

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:05:11 +0000

The grounds of Drummond Castle near Crieff showcase the best example of a formal terraced garden in Scotland. Begun in 1630, this spectacular piece of decorative landscaping was a forerunner of Enlightenment ideas and remains the focal point for the wide expanse of surrounding parkland.

Drummond Castle itself was built on a rocky outcrop by John, 1st Lord Drummond. The 2nd Earl, a Privy Councillor to James VI and Charles I, succeeded in 1612 and is credited with transforming both the gardens and the castle. The keep still stands but the rest of the castle was restored and largely remodelled by the 1st Earl of Ancaster in 1890.

The aerial image here comes from RCAHMS latest publication, Above Scotland: The National Collection of Aerial Photography. Published on 8 October 2009, it was selected as Waterstone’s ‘Scottish Book of the Month’ for November and is now close to selling out its initial print run. The book will be reprinted in February 2010.

16 December 2009: Glasgow School of Art

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:13:44 +0000

Completed in two stages between 1897 and 1909, Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s vision for the Glasgow School of Art is arguably the best known and most widely regarded of all his buildings.

Situated in Renfrew Street in the north of Glasgow city centre, it was voted the best British-designed building of the last 175 years in a recent online poll for the Royal Institute of British Architects' Journal. This week, as part of the building’s centenary celebrations, a £100 note showing the face of Mackintosh is being projected onto the School’s west wall, along with a series of films about its history and importance.

Mackintosh was only 29 when he won his commission to design a new building for Glasgow’s Art School. The finished masterwork draws on a wide variety of influences, from the Scottish baronial style for the imposing exterior, to traditional Japanese domestic architecture for the complex interior, and continues to fascinate students of art and architecture throughout the world.

Pictured here in 1901 is a view of the School’s basement west corridor with an array of sculpted busts filling the shelves. This is just one of a large number of archive images of the Mackintosh building held in the RCAHMS collection.

9 December 2009: Hamilton Hall

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:26:06 +0000

Hamilton Hall opened its doors as the Grand Hotel in 1895. Its founder Thomas Hamilton is said to have commissioned the building – which is positioned adjacent to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club – immediately after his application for membership to the Club was rejected.

Hamilton Hall has taken on many different roles in the past century, from being requisitioned by the Army in the Second World War to being turned into halls of residence for students of St Andrews University. After lying empty for a number of years, it was announced last week that the building has been bought by the US magnate Herb Kohler – who also owns the Old Course Hotel. The intention is to renovate Hamilton Hall in consultation with locals

The original building was designed by Glasgow architect James Milne Monro. Monro received many commissions for hotels, including the Callander Hydropathic and the Royal Hotel at Campbeltown. Monro's practice also created extensions for the Dreadnought Hotel in Callander and other hotels in Oban, Stranraer and Grantown-on-Spey. Under the leadership of Monro's son Charles and later his grandson Geoffrey, the practice went on to design 126 branches of Marks & Spencer, including their first purpose-built store in Scotland on Argyle Street in Glasgow.

RCAHMS holds a number of the original drawings for Hamilton Hall as part of the Monro & Partners Collection.

2 December 2009: His Majesty's Theatre

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:49:05 +0000

His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen was designed by arguably the greatest and most prolific of British theatre designers, Frank Matcham.

Matcham, who never qualified as an architect, was responsible for the original design of over 80 theatres, and refitted or worked on hundreds of others. His most notable achievements include The King's Theatre in Glasgow, The Hackney Empire in London and the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool.

Today, only some two dozen of his theatres survive, with many having been demolished or radically altered as bingo halls, nightclubs and cinemas.

In 2005, His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen was reopened after a £7.8 million redevelopment funded by Aberdeen City Council, the National Lottery, the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Enterprise Grampian. A major part of the work involved the construction of a brand new extension to the Theatre. 550 square metres of Kemnay granite – the same material used for the original 1906 building – helped complete the extension. His Majesty’s Theatre has the unique distinction of being the only theatre in the UK to be completely built of granite.

The project also marked the most comprehensive refurbishment in the 103-year history of the category A-listed theatre.

26 November 2009: Dumgoyach, Stirling

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:25:43 +0000

In the last year, some 128,000 items, from photographs and drawings to historic books and postcards, have been added to the RCAHMS collection.

Among the more unusual additions are two oil paintings by the nineteenth century topographical artist William Barry. Paintings of archaeological subjects are relatively rare, and the work of Barry – an Edinburgh-based photographer and artist who concentrated on landscape composition in the later years of his career – is particularly noteworthy.

The picture here is a digital scan of an oil painting of the stone row at Dumgoyach, Stirling and dates from around 1880. This is the earliest known view of the monument, and shows it in significantly more intact condition than later views. How much this is a true record of the site and how much is artistic interpretation is yet to be established. The second painting by Barry is a watercolour of Dumbarton rock dating from around 1878.

RCAHMS collection is recognised internationally and continues to grow year on year, with hundreds of thousands of new items relating to Scotland's built heritage being deposited by companies, institutions and individuals.

18 November 2009: New Zealand Parliament Extension

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:53:27 +0000

Sir Basil Spence is perhaps best known for his design for the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. His other well known work includes the British Embassy in Rome, the New Zealand Parliament Extension, Edinburgh University Library and Glasgow Airport.

In 2003, the Spence family presented RCAHMS with a collection of over 40,000 items. This unique archive is made up of elements from Sir Basil's personal life, his student days in Edinburgh, and his entire professional career. It includes office drawings and sketches, files, photographs, news cuttings, models and personal papers.

The collection has been expertly conserved and catalogued, and in 2007–08 was the subject of a hugely successful exhibition that ran at the National Galleries of Scotland, Dean Gallery in Edinburgh, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in London and the Herbert Gallery, Coventry.

The Sir Basil Spence Archive contains 44 drawings, five photographs and four manuscript folders containing correspondence, news cuttings and publications relating to the New Zealand Parliament extension.

11 November 2009: Scottish National War Memorial

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:35:45 +0000

The Scottish National War Memorial was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1927 as a tribute to the Scottish casualties of the First World War.

The Memorial stands in the central and highest part of the Castle and forms the north side of the historic Crown Square. The building was designed by Scottish architect Sir Robert Lorimer who appointed two hundred Scottish artists and crafts people to create a Hall of Honour and Shrine that incorporate scenes of war depicted through stone carvings, bronze friezes and stained glass.

In the Shrine stands a steel casket containing the Roll of Honour. It is surrounded by a bronze frieze designed and crafted by Morris and Alice Meredith Williams. It depicts all types of Scottish service men and women, true life figures of men and women wearing battle or working dress.

Since 1917 additions and alterations have been made to commemorate lives lost in the Second World War and later conflicts including the Korean War, Falklands War and Gulf War.

4 November 2009: Forth Road Bridge

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:12:42 +0000

45 years after its construction, the Forth Road Bridge held its first ever ‘open week’, with over 1,000 members of the public joining guided tours. Normally unseen areas such as the anchorage chambers - where the main cables are attached to the ground - were made accessible, and over 50 young people from local schools and community groups were given extended tours, including the opportunity to climb to the top of the support towers, 156m above sea level.

The open week was run by the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (Feta), and included an exhibition celebrating the history of the bridge which featured displays, models and videos.

Officially opened by the Queen on 4 September 1964, at that time the Forth Road Bridge was the largest suspension bridge in Europe, and the fourth largest in the world, with a main span of 1.05km and an overall length of 2.5km. Its construction brought to an end the 800-year history of a ferry-boat service crossing the estuary between North and South Queensferry.

The image here was taken in 1961 by Construction Manager R B Wood, and looks north from the top of the South Main Tower along the footwalk suspended above the fog. It is just one of a large number of images of the Forth Road Bridge that can be viewed on our searchable online database Canmore.

28 October 2009: Inchindown, Royal Naval Fuel Tanks

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:37:58 +0000

Inchindown fuel depot, found in the hills to the north of Invergordon, was built during the Second World War as a bombproof oil store for the Royal Navy – one of three constructed throughout Britain. A four mile long pipeline linked the depot to the Royal Naval dockyard and port facility at Invergordon. Had Britain’s ports been blockaded by Germany, these secure underground stores would have been the main sources of fuel for the Navy.

The Inchindown depot contains six storage tanks, five being 237m long, 9m wide and 13.5m high - each with the capacity to hold up to 5.6 million gallons of furnace oil - and a smaller sixth tank, which is 170m long. The first tank carries a plaque commemorating the date of completion of construction - February MCMXLI AD (1941).

The fuel could flow under gravity to Invergordon, and a main pumping station was built at Tomich to manage flow back to the storage cells. To improve the flow in cold weather, heaters were installed at regular intervals along the length of the pipeline.

In September this year, as part of a Doors Open Day initiative driven by the Forest Heritage Scotland project, 40 members of the public were given a tour of the Inchindown depot by RCAHMS experts. The tour was so popular that spaces were booked out within 90 minutes and a specially arranged second tour took place in October. To see more photographs of Inchindown, use the link below.

21 October 2009: Royal Museum of Scotland

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:00:57 +0000

The Royal Museum building – which began life in 1854 as the Industrial Museum of Scotland – was inspired by London’s Crystal Palace. Engineer Captain Francis Fowke and local architect Robert Matheson were responsible for the design, intending to create a building that was both beautiful and technically innovative.

The east wing and one third of the current main hall were opened in 1866, by which time the building had become known as the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art. Prince Albert, who was a driving force behind Britain’s nineteenth century museum movement, laid the foundation stone in 1861 – his last public act. Over the years the museum has seen many changes in its architecture and interior. Fowke’s vision took 30 years to complete, culminating in the opening of the west wing in 1890. Behind the Chambers Street facade, the museum has been altered, adapted and extended in response to the growth in the collections and changing public use.

By the time of the building’s jubilee in 1904, the museum had become the Royal Scottish Museum, and was Scotland’s first national public building. Today it is Category A listed.

Scotland's National Collection of Aerial Photography

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:18:10 +0000

14 October 2009

The National Collection of Aerial Photography is one of the largest and most significant in the world, comprising over 1.6 million images of Scotland, and tens of millions of military intelligence photographs of locations across the globe.

With the earliest images of Scotland dating from the 1920s, the Collection traces the development of the nation throughout the twentieth century and beyond, from wartime and post-war RAF photography to aerial imagery produced by the Ordnance Survey to aid map-making, and photographs taken by RCAHMS own aerial survey team over the past 30 years.

Worldwide aerial photography also forms a major part of the National Collection, with millions of images from Second World War Allied and German aircraft, and more recent RAF aerial photography from around the world up to the 1990s.

The image here was taken by RCAHMS aerial survey team in 2006 and shows the Glasgow Science Centre and Imax Cinema, two major features of the Clyde Waterfront regeneration scheme. It is one of over 200 of the finest Scottish images from the Collection published this week in a new book.

Above Scotland: The National Collection of Aerial Photography is priced £25.00 and is available now from all good booksellers. You can also order direct from BookSource on 0845 370 0067 (Monday - Friday, 9am – 5pm). A gallery of images from the book is available here.

A rapidly expanding selection of imagery from the Collection can also be browsed and purchased online through Canmore and a new dedicated RCAHMS Aerial Photography website, currently in beta format, which will be launched officially later this year. Full access is available in the RCAHMS public search room in Edinburgh, by appointment.