While not well known now, MacKennal was a celebrated sculptor of his time, and if you're old enough, you'll have unwittingly carried a piece of his artwork in your pocket as he designed the coinage minted during the reign of King George V (some of which was still in circulation until at least the 1980s).
A relief sculpture from the grave monument for Walter Macfarlane, the founder of the Saracen Foundry in Possilpark in Glasgow. Erected in the Necropolis, the sculpture was created in 1896 by Bertram MacKennal, and Australian of Scots descent, and I particularly like lower art nouveau style figure and the two winged figures at the base with their page-boy hairstyles.
What looks like an old gravestone, featuring a memento mori, set into a wall beside the 1850s Ivy Lodge (now part of Glasgow University) on Gibson Street in the Hillhead area of Glasgow. I need to go back and look at this again to see if I can work out if it really is a gravestone (and, if so, its potential age - such memento mori are typically a feature of 17th or 18th century gravestones in Scotland), or whether it's something else.
Blonde sandstone tenements on Hillhead Street in the West End of Glasgow.
1930s Art Deco style addition to the Templeton Carpet Factory on the corner of Templeton Street and London Road in Glasgow. It was designed by George Boswell, who also designed the section which looks south over Glasgow Green in 1938.
Needless to say, Glaswegians flocked to both theatres to watch the drama unfold, both on stage and off, but eventually, a magistrate had to step in and ordered the two theatres to perform on alternating nights to to stop the feud getting any further out of hand.
Why this story of warring theatre impressarios hasn't yet been made into a TV drama series, I don't know, but if anyone's interested, I'd be happy to write it.
This is one of my favourite memorials in the Glasgow Necropolis, and there's an amusing story associated with it. It was erected in memory of the theatre impressario John Henry Alexander who died in 1851, and who already owned theatres on Carlisle and Dumfries before coming to Glasgow in the 1820s.
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Grand monuments in the Necropolis, Glasgow's first major Victorian cemetery. Opened in the 1840s, it marked a shift in burial practices in the growing city from people being interred in small burial grounds surrounding local churches to the use of large centralised cemeteries.
The grand processional leading from the medieval Cathedral across the Bridge of Sighs, which carries it over the Molendinar Ravine, to the Necropolis, Glasgow's Victorian city of the dead. It was designed by David and James Hamilton, and was built in the 1830s.
A dinosaur mural hidden away on the side of the Chemistry building of Glasgow University where it faces the Zoology building across a narrow, dead-end lane. I've often wonldered if the Chernistry Department even knows it's there!
By the way, before anyone points it out, I know the one with the sail on its back isn't really a dinosaur, but another type of ancient giant reptile!
Just when I think Glasgow can't get any weirder, I come across this notice pasted on a wall in the East End for a lost crocodile who's run off with someone's best high heeled shoes. If you see him, please let the owner know!
In total, there are about 3,500 grave markers in the Necropolis, but around 50,000 people were buried here, so the majority lie in unmarked common graves like this one.
Love this flower memorial which is being created in the Necropolis, Glasgow's main Victorian cemetery. It marks a common grave where 8,094 people were interred. When visiting the Necropolis, it's easy to focus on the ornate monuments created for the upper echelons of Glasgow society set on the top of the hill and forget that this was a burial place for all.
Happy Easter everyone! Dad's dressed up as the Easter Bunny this year to hand out eggs to all the little ones in our colony. I love chocolate eggs, especially the mackerel-flavoured ones! Mmmmmm, chocolate mackerel!
I came across this tree today in Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow. This city can be weird sometimes. Imaginative, creative, amusing, but still rather weird - womderfully, wonderfully weird!
Love this little detail on the gates to the St Nicholas gardens on Castle Street in Glasgow. It's one of the four symbols from the Glasgow coat of arms which have been incorporated into the design.
The Muthu Glasgow River Hotel overlooking the Clyde. It currently looks more abandoned and on the way to ruin than in the process of being renovated, although there were more cars on the car park than the small signs of building work near the lobby might suggest. #Concretopia #Brutalism #Architecture #Glasgow
Of course, in Glasgow, there's another way of separating the two: A road cone fits neatly on the head of a statue, but not necessarily on a sculpture!
I've often said there's no statue of Mary Queen of Scots in Glasgow, which is true, but there is this sculpture of her on the gates of St Nicholas Gardens behind the Provand's Lordship on Castle Street. So, what makes it a sculpture rather than a statue? Officially, a sculpture is any three dimensional work of art, while a statue is an approximately life-sized and more or less realistic full figure representation of a person or animal.
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A wonderful circular corner bay window topped by a rather striking Glasgow Style metal cupola and finial on Alexandra Parade in the east end of Glasgow.
