The Merchant City Trail

The Merchant City lies at the heart of Glasgow’s City Centre, where historically the tobacco lairds and traders which once made Glasgow the Second City of the Empire came to do business, socialise and build their townhouses .. and later their warehouses.  The area still possesses a remarkable consistency, of materials and rhythm and demonstrates a strong civic pride through the number of buildings adorned with carved coats of arms. Despite the area falling victim to the inner city obsolescence that afflicted so many parts of urban Britain in the Twentieth Century, the Merchant City became the scene of a remarkable public sector led renaissance during the 1980’s and was held up internationally as a successful example of how post industrial architecture can re-make itself if events and political wills conspire – to create new solutions and dynamic partnerships. 

More recently a large part of the area has been designated the focus of an inter agency programme to repair the fabric of its historic architecture and streets.  The Merchant City Townscape Heritage Initiative matches funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund with finance from both Glasgow City Council and Scottish Enterprise Glasgow to enable phased programme of improvements to buildings and re-use of empty floorspace to take place.

The aim of the THI and other public and private sector initiatives in the area is to again raise the profile of the Merchant City as a unique part of Glasgow, a place where old values of commerce and business have evolved to assimilate the new buzzwords of design and style, of inner city loft living and café counter culture

The message from all of the above is that the Merchant City is a place not just to be seen, but to SEE – and it is the aim of this trail to make sure that you see as much of it as you possibly can, within the space of a meaningful meander amongst times past and the beat of tempos new.....so walk on.

…. and the good news – the Merchant City is FLAT …..so walk on.

The Trail starts and ends alongside the National Trust for Scotland’s Hutcheson’s Hall @ 157 Ingram Street where the contemporary exhibition on Glasgow Style is a permanent feature of this showcase venue.

1. Hutchesons Hall designed by David Hamilton 1802
Like many civic buildings in the Merchant City Hutcheson’s Hall forms the vista stop to a wide public street, rather like a judge presiding over a court or a preacher over a congregation  Hutchesons Hall is now owned and operated by the National Trust for Scotland, but the original founders – the Hutcheson brothers still flank the main entrance of their refuge hospital for poor craftsmen. 

Don’t miss a visit to the sumptuous upper level hall, remodelled by John Baird II in 1876 and your chance to see the very best of new Glasgow style design (boldly transformed by Gareth Hoskins Architects) on display and sale in the shop below.


2. Former John Street Church designed by JT Rochead in 1860
More palazzo than church, and with extraordinarily heavy plasterwork by James Steel surviving on the converted upper floors, the design of this building enables it to fit remarkably well into the hard urban setting of the Merchant City and has perhaps allowed its successful transition into other (office and bar) uses.


3. The Italian Centre remodelled by Page & Park in 1988.
One of the first pieces of commercial, private sector led urban regeneration to venture into the modern day Merchant City. A bold and massively popular re-claiming of derelict early 19th Century tenements by Classical House Ltd. and the award winning architects Page & Park which saw the creation of a sunny, sheltered courtyard around a mixed use scheme of housing, offices and 'haute couture' shops and cafes with a heavy dose of classical and more contemporary versions of public art. Particularly noteworthy are the trademark Sandy Stoddart's 'bronzes' of Mercury and Italia sitting atop the wallheads and the playful response of Shona Kinloch within the courtyard with her 'wee dug' and 'wee man' - the latter a budding Romeo throwing a kiss to his imaginary sweetheart (check out the tattoo) on one of the upper balconies…aaahh!


4. Sheriff Courts 1842, last re-modelled by Clarke & Bell in 1892
Originally erected as Glasgow's municipal and county buildings - i.e. its town hall, this massive and presently dilapidated Greek Revival building was the result of a clever competition winning design by Clarke & Bell, Edin. Of particular note is the south portico of Ionic columns built above a plinth exquisitely carved with a frieze of classical, robed figures. The colonnade of fluted Corinthian columns facing Garth Street marks the position of the former Merchant House which once faced squarely onto its colleagues in the Trades House (No. 17 below). Despite its grand presence and grandiose occupant, the Sheriff Courts have had a curiously 'jilted' history - the council moving to the City Chambers in 1888, the Merchants House moving to its new premises opposite in 1875 and finally the court itself relocating to the Gorbals in 198… After many years of vacancy however, a scheme of conversion is now ongoing.

5. Ingram Square
The first large scale development invasion into the area was led by Kantel and Elder & Cannon architects in 1984 -9, when virtually an entire city block of mainly redundant warehouses was converted and enlivened with some superbly judged and idiosyncratic pieces of infill - creating a complex of flats, shops and decked courtyards that has remained perennially popular with would be Merchant City residents. Of the converted buildings particular note is due to RW Billings 1854 eccentrically busy corner building on Ingram Street and Candleriggs with its mixture of Scots Baronial and 17th Century detailing.

Of the modern interlopers - the southern block at Bell Street boasting the Merchant City's only curved corner in its tall post modern Italianate lantern has become something of a beacon for the area, combined with the self assurance of the Brunswick Hotel (Elder & Cannon 1998) - all testifying to a spirit of confident new design and even reticent genius in their composition.



6. Ramshorn Church designed by Thomas Rickman in 1826
Built as the termination to Candleriggs, this box like early Gothic-style church is a pioneering example of one of the earliest Gothic-Revival churches in Scotland, barely disguising its classical composition with thin mediaeval detailing. Now used as a theatre by the University of Strathclyde's Drama department, a plaque on the west flank of the tower testifies to its association with John Macdonald who became the first prime minister of Canada.

The wonderfully peaceful green space of the church graveyard is well worth a stroll, particularly in the summer - when it becomes a stress free zone where local office workers take their picnic lunch. Discover the tombstones of the old tobacco Lairds buried here; search out John Glassford's headstone (after whom Glassford Street is named) and who made and lost a fortune in tobacco, and died an unpopular man at home by supporting the American revolutionaries in the War of Independence. Also to be found is the grave of David Dale, the pioneering industrialist who helped build New Lanark in Scotland - which in turn became the model for New Harmony in America.



7. The Todd Building - new build designed by James Cunning Young in 1999
Worth a look on leaving the graveyard is the spiky, steel and glass vertical wedge of the Todd Building - Glasgow's first official loft development and so stylish that even the pigeons on the balconies wear shades …. it is a welcome contribution to the reputation of the Merchant City as a location for strong new design.

Before crossing the road south to Albion Street - look back to see one of the City's best 1930's curtain wall buildings - Owen Williams' black vitrolite screen (1936) at the former Glasgow Herald newspaper - which sadly left the Merchant City area during 2000, but is a smaller sibling to Owen's similar work for the Daily Express in Fleet St.


8. City Halls (Geo. Murray 1841) and Markets designed by John Carrick 1882
Walking down the beautifully landscaped Candleriggs, where the original Loch Fyneside granite setts have been recently cleaned and re-laid in the carriageway, you will be treading on the engineering of the Victorian City architect - John Carrick, who also designed much of the original City Halls, the first concert hall to be built in the City for the express purpose of public gatherings and orchestral concerts, and which played host to the likes of Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens and William Gladstone. This building is shortly to undergo an extensive refurbishment programme to incorporate the new home of the BBC SSO.

This area of the City was once the focus for the bustling produce markets which still feed the imagination with names such as the fresh fruit and flower market (see the carve stone garland crowning the corner with Wilson Street), the cheese market whose lettering still survives and the dead meat market. Glasgow took much pride in the formation of these vast wholesale trading floors, which were rigorously vetted in terms of their sanitation and hygienic operations. The character and livelihood of the area also took much sustenance from the markets and it was the end of the area's first lifecycle when the needs of mechanised warehousing and distribution networks gradually combined with traffic congestion in the 1960's to drive out the markets to new sheds on the periphery such as those at Blochairn.

The hustle and bustle of mixed use have begun to return to the City Halls and Bazaar recently with a comprehensive upgrading and make over of the grand old auditorium promised under its new use by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, a stylish new shopping and restaurant complex opening up at Merchant Square in the old market hall (A.B.McDonald 1907) and the former north salon site offering the promise of a bold new piece of civic design.


9. Café Gandolfi, 10. Cheese Market/Arta and 11. Babbity Bowster
A Merchant City favourite - Gandolfi's was one of the first pioneers to locate in the area and has built up a well earned reputation for the quality of its meals; with a highly atmospheric interior, furniture by Tim Stead and the wonderful 'shoals of fish glass' by John Clark - be sure not to just swim past - jump in! Around the 'back' of Gandolfi's is the former City Corporation Cheese Market, built by the Glasgow Office of Public Works in 1902, but now a tucked away Mediterranean style restaurant and bar around an internal courtyard. Further on and the pub at Babbity Bowster (Blackfriars Street) designed originally by Robert Adam in 17… is one of the Merchant City's institutions with an emphasis on local Scottish produce, real ales, irreverent chat and general bonhomie. The building itself which features a hotel on its upper levels, a fine restaurant at first and a bar at ground, was rescued as a 2-storey shell and completely restored to its Georgian appearance with pediment and original columned doorcase, by N Grove Raines Architects in 1984-86. Also visit the newly opened attic bar which 


12. Tolbooth designed by John Boyd in 1625
Standing a lonely sentinel over what is now little more that a traffic junction the buckle quoined steeple, is all that remains of its parent structure - in this case the original city Tolbooth - which was demolished in 1921 when the adjacent concave quadrant was built as part of a masterplan to re-organise the entire Cross, a scheme which floundered almost immediately thereafter.


13. Tron Theatre and Steeple (Church/theatre by R& J Adam 1794, remodelled by RMJM 1999)
One of the other survivors of the mediaeval Trongate, the Tron Steeple is all that is left of the original St. Mary's kirk that was burnt to the ground after a particularly riotous evening by the notorious Hell Fire Club in 1793, later it again scraped a reprieve when the City architect wished to widen the carriageway, hence the gothic arches cut into its base - displaying the city coat of arms and St. Mungo. Superbly re-modelled and dramatically re-invented, the Adam brothers church now boasts a range of superb café/bar/restaurant facilities in ultra modern surroundings, not to mention the most stylish box office in Scotland - even if it is built over a reclaimed railway vent … oh, and lest we forget - it's got a brilliant theatre as well - which can take over …. patrons in the nave of the original Adam church for a range of popular, Scottish, cutting edge and experimental dramatics …someone must be turning in their grave….


14. Former Britannia Music Hall designed by Gildard & MacFarlane 1857
Described as the finest surviving early music hall theatre in the UK* this now shabby, Italianate façade, was built originally as shops and warehouses, but shortly afterwards converted to a musical institution with freak shows in its attics, before renaming as the Panopticon, adding a waxworks and a museum (and later a cinema) which saw the early careers of Stan Laurel, Harry Lauder and Cary Grant. The Music Hall closed in 1938. But the interior shell still survives and awaits a future lifting of the curtain. (* UK Theatres Trust 1999)


15. Former National Bank of Scotland designed by TP Marwick 1902
..is a deceptively tall tiered affair with seven floors disguised within the baroque baronial of the still crisp façade, with its heavily rusticated coursing and clasping pepperpot turrets to corners.


16. Virginia Galleries orig. the Tobacco Exchange 1819, later the Sugar Exchange
Unfortunately the building is being demolished as of September 2003 although the internal galleries are to be maintained. Virginia Street is at the heart of the estates of the former tobacco lords. Laid out in 1753, the street was originally terminated by the Virginia Mansions at its north end. Amongst these dark brooding warehouses one can almost smell the stored tobacco and hear the exchanges of the merchants in their adjoining offices. Enter through a passage into the three tiered, glass roofed arcade of the original trading floor of the 18th Century tobacco trade in Glasgow and effectively with the rest of the world. On the way out of Virginia Street, pause and take in the magnificent swagger of Alexander Skirving's former Scottish Legal Life Assurance Offices (1884) at the corner with Wilson Street with its incised Greek and Roman carving still beautifully crisp in the red Dumfriesshire sandstone - now a successful mix of cafes, bars and loft apartments. Also note the solid, Roman palace frontage of the former Glasgow Gas Light Company, now part of the adjacent Marks & Spencer store, and could you miss the subliminal advertising of the 'Jacobean Corsetry' building opposite.


17. The Warehouse designed by Robertson & Dobbie 1907.
At the corner of Glassford Street and Wilson Street you'll find a handsome Art Nouveau former warehouse, with a great deli and wine cellar, and typical Glasgow style ironwork.


18. Trades Hall designed by Robert Adam in 1791
Designed to accommodate the offices of Glasgow's rising trades guilds, this is the first example in the city of the use of a grand front to close a vista at the end of a standard, flat fronted street (Garth St.) This is Adam's only surviving Glasgow building and many of his hallmarks are present, such as Venetian windows, unfluted Ionic columns, and the distinctive play of advanced and recessed wall plains. Inside, the Hall has rich paneling and a Belgian silk tapestry of 1902 depicting the various trades - fleshers, tanners, bonnetmakers, and bakers amongst others. Today the hall can be visited by arrangement and provides a superbly atmospheric venue for medium sized conferences, banquets and receptions, and increasingly for wedding parties.


19. Former Trustee Savings Bank designed by JJ Burnet in 1900
This muscular Edwardian French Renaissance building belies its essentially single storey stature to powerfully turn the corner into Ingram Street, aided stylistically by the large, spreading dome and heavy carving to stonework - note especially the main North doorway with figure of St. Mungo in a niche and the symbolic figures of commerce industry and thrift elsewhere, the fine ornate ironwork to the main doors and glimpse into the interior of the former banking hall - the first home of the internationally respected Glasgow Savings Bank.


20. The Corinthian designed by David Hamilton 1841, J Burnet 1876
The site of the former Virginia Mansion was redeveloped to create the Union Bank - with magnificent tellers hall added by James Salmon in 1853, latterly much cut up and divided as the Lanarkshire House court rooms. Fortunately, its interior riches were literally rediscovered in alteration work to create a stunning new upmarket club, restaurant and bar complex and the new owner displayed amazing attention to detail in recasting and restoring features and fittings to what is now one of the City's most glorious rendezvous spots; particularly impressive when seen at night when the floodlighting brings to life the mannerist, Italianate façade and its free standing classical figure sculpture.


21. Tobacco Merchants House designed by John Craig 1775
Restored by Glasgow Building Preservation Trust in 1995, this pretty little classical house is the last surviving tobacco lairds house left standing in the Merchant City. Badly altered and ruinous inside when the Trust acquired it, the restored building now provides a home for many of the City's leading architectural and amenity organisations including GBPT itself and the Scottish Civic Trust, who acquired the building in 1997.


22. Gallery of Modern Art enlarged as Royal Exchange by David Hamilton in 1827
Continuing the peculiarly Glasgow tradition of setting major public buildings within built up squares, this splendid building was once the mansion house of William Cunninghame, one of the richest of Glasgow's tobacco lairds. In its time the building has assumed a chameleon-like ability to change and survive - a metaphor for modern Glasgow perhaps - the house being later encapsulated within Hamilton's grand Royal Exchange with its magnificent temple front now brought up to date by the mirrored pediment by artist Niki de St. Phalle; the building then became a telephone exchange in the 1920's and latterly the local public library - until 1996 when its superb barrel vaulted interior was again reclaimed by its conversion to a gallery housing the City's fine, controversial and challenging collections of modern art including noteable examples of the new Glasgow Boys …and Girls. The equestrian statue is of the Duke of Wellington and sits within one of Glasgow's foremost examples of its new public realm works at Royal Exchange Square, with its planned relationship to the buildings of the Square itself, the fine cast iron railings and arched gateways which lead westwards into Buchanan Street.


23. George Square
Laid out in 1801 to a plan prepared by James Barry, George Square quickly became a focus of civic buildings and statues. Planned as a double square, bisected in two along its length, George Square never enjoyed the architectural consistency of Charlotte Square in Edinburgh or contemporaries in London and arguably has never attained such presence since with redevelopment over the last century, leaving only the City Chambers itself, Merchant House JJ Burnet 18.. on the west side and Robert Matheson's former General Post Office (1875) on the south - (now a hotel) to provide some civic context. It does however provide a natural venue for civic occasions and celebrations etc., and is home to a clutch of first class monuments - the earliest being the homage to Walter Scott at the centre of the square. The Greek Doric column constructed in 1837 terminates the views along Miller and Hanover Streets and is a curious choice for a man whose whole career was devoted to all things Scottish and championed the Gothic novel - but we may assume that the style was dictated by civic pretension and not personal appropriateness! Other statues are to great Scottish men - Robert Burns, James Watt, Doctor Livingstone and Lord Clyde as well as a youthful Queen Victoria - acting as a lonely female figurehead in the Square - a distinction to feminism she would no doubt have shunned!


24. City Chambers designed by William Young in 1880.
Arguably one of the finest public buildings of 19th Century Britain, the City Chambers commands the wide expanse of George Square. Facing west, the ornate façade is periodically bathed in sunshine or soaked by the Glasgow rains - sometimes both at the same time. Young's only major commission in Scotland the chambers took seven years to build and engaged the skills from craftsmen as far a field as Italy and France. This extravagance is clearly manifest inside where the marble staircase, and the sumptuous Banqueting Halls with their ornate plasterwork, alabaster and mahogany fittings and superb Glasgow Boy art works are all accessible to the public in daily organised tours or else unwittingly glimpsed as the backdrop to many a film - ostensibly set in the Vatican or the Kremlin!


Other places to visit
Within a short walk of the trail is St. Andrew's in the Square one of the finest examples of neo-baroque church architecture in Scotland, whose incredible gilded plasterwork interior was converted between 1998- 2000 into a traditional music venue and bar/restaurant by Glasgow Building Preservation Trust; and to the north and east of the area - the Cathedral at the top of High Street and the Peoples Palace on Glasgow Green are just a few of the many attractions that will take you both back in time and bang up to date with what is going on in the City.

Recommended reading: Penguin Buildings of Scotland: Glasgow: Williamson E., Riches A., Higgs M. RIAS Guide to Glasgow: McKean C.