Roman palace style building ( 1866-7 )  at 42 Virginia Street Built for the Glasgow Gas-light company

Modern French style building ( 1892-5 ),  121 West George Street Built for Sun Fire & Life Insurance

Grand Colosseum Warehoue,  60-68 Jamaica Street Canmore - Grand Colosseum Warehouse Glasgow History - Jamaica Street

THE GRAND COLOSSEUM WAREHOUSE

It was a sad end to a building that had been something of a pioneer among department stores in Victorian Glasgow.
The Grand Colosseum Warehouse, which had been established by the peerless entrepreneur Walter Wilson, had a
distinguished lifespan but, by 1994, in the words of the Glasgow Herald, it had become “a beige ruin that sprawls
like a dead elephant, decomposing along Jamaica Street”.
Wilson’s innovations as a retailer saw him create tearooms, decorated with rich Japanese silks, and a ladies-
only saloon, in the store. He gave Glaswegians a taste for Ceylon tea, and when he initiated a delivery
service, facilitated by a Daimler, it was said that crowds used to gather four times a day to watch the
car depart. And one woman who had worked in the Colosseum from aged 15 remembered it as a “beautiful”
store though also as a traditional, regimented employer.
Three blocks of iron-framed warehouses in Jamaica Street, dating from around the 1850s, were in fact
occupied by Wilson’s businesses. The loss of such distinctive buildings has long been lamented; the emporium
itself was demolished in 1994, having latterly been operated by the Paisley’s department store.
Architectural historian Gavin Stamp, writing that year, observed a “shocking hole in the ground” where
Paisley’s had stood, and said that the most handsome and interesting of the city centre’s cast-iron buildings were
the Colosseum blocks. The point is, he added, that Glasgow’s collection of cast-iron buildings was unique in
Britain, symbolic of the city’s remarkable industrial strength in the mid-19th century.
Twenty~nine years later, Michael Pacione, Emeritus Professor of Geography at Strathclyde University
writes that had the Colosseum building survived, it may have been the earliest example of this kind of
construction to be found anywhere.
Regrettably, nothing now remains of this historically important part of Glasgow’s architectural heritage”. A
hotel now stands on the site. Prof Pacione makes the observation in his new book, Glasgow Then and
Now, which traces the history of Glasgow and its occasionally restless pace of change. One absorbing post-
war fact he relates is that fully one-seventh of Scotland’s population was crowded into eight square
kilometres of central Glasgow.
With the aid of then-and-now photographs he has taken over several decades, he goes on to study the scale
of change in distinct areas: 80-plus locations in all, across the city centre, the east end, the north side, the south
side and the West end. He, more than most, is aware that change waits for no-one. As he puts it:
“Did people know that Glasgow had a Colosseum, a Greek temple, and the largest brick building in Europe?
Would they like to see them‘? Too late, they are gone.
“How about the oldest remaining 19th-century bonded warehouse on the Broomielaw, Springburn locomotive works offices,
the first teacher training college in Britain, or former pleasure gardens on the Stobcross estate?
It’s still possible, but people shouldn’t delay in the city, change is a constant.
The pleasure gardens at St Vincent Crescent are an interesting example. In 1849, the Stobcross Estate Company began
speculative building of a new suburb on land just west of Anderston and Finnieston, with the aim of creating a
quality environment to rival that of the nearby terraces on Woodlands Hill. The new street was the first
crescent built in Glasgow to be subdivided into flats rather than individual houses.
For a variety of reasons however, Stobcross Crescent, later renamed St Vincent Crescent, in time succumbed
to slum landlords and to overcrowding, and its decline was such that by the 1950s, demolition
was an option. But interest was expressed in developing the housing in the 1960s; by the 1970s, work had
begun on rehabilitating the street into a desirable residential environment.
“Part of the original pleasure gardens remain in two bowling clubs along the south side of the crescent,”
says Prof Pacione. “However, ironically, given the origins of the suburb, these are under pressure from
modern-day speculative builders.”
As further evidence of the constant nature of change, look no further than the Buchanan Galleries, which
opened only in 1998 but are already the subject of a wide-ranging proposal to demolish them and build in their
place a shopping, residential and office quarter. ( Similar plans are in hand for the St Enoch Centre, which was opened in 1989. )
Archive pictures in the book illustrate the changes that time has visited upon Glasgow. A 2001 picture
of the south-westrcorner of Buchanan Street and Bath Street shows a clutch of elderly buildings occupied by,
amongst other premises, Fingal's pub and the Athene Express restaurant.
Demolishing the properties and building shops, offices and flats on the site was a long and arduous process,
entailing legal hearings. Today the site, across from the Buchanan Galleries, houses such upmarket
shops as Watches of Switzerland.
Also gone are the Macdonald furniture store at the top of North Hanover Street, replaced by a
20-storey, 422-room student accommodation block; and the 1856, ]ohn Burnet-designed Elgin Place
Congregational Church at the corner of Bath Street and Pitt Street. The church’s jet-black, uncleaned
facade made it stand out, even in its latter years when it housed a succession of nightclubs. Severely
damaged by firein 2005, it was demolished, and eventually replaced by the iQ Elgin Place glass tower of
student flats. “The new building stands out from its 19th-century neighbours on Bath Street,” remarks
Prof Pacione, “and is marginally less of an insult to the traditional cityscape that the monstrous office
and apartment buildings opposite on the south side of the street.”
Change in Glasgow came about for many reasons — the need to demolish slums, to house a growing population
to cope with de-industrialisation, to modernise, to improve the transport network — but sometimes the
pressures were external whereas for most of the preceding two centuries Glasgow had been confronted by problems associated
with rapid growth,” Prof Pacione writes, “in the post-war era the city was confronted with challenges of
decline as its traditional manufacturing base succumbed to a changing and more competitive world
economy; “Economic decline was mirrored in the built environment in areas such as the inner east end, where once-grand
warehouses became vacant and fell into disrepair, awaiting a new role in the life of the city.”
Among these warehouses was one on the corner of Bell Street and Watson Street ( the words “T Neale
and Partners, Auctioneers and Valuers” are visible in a 1994 picture ), which was demolished and eventually
replaced by an apartment block. A particularly sad story concerns the Springburn Public Halls. Boasting
an ornate facade ( the work of William B Whitie, who would later design the Mitchell Library), the venue was
opened in 1902 and was for decades the beating heart of Springburn.
Between 1960 and 1985 it operated as a sports centre. After its closure the B-listed building began to deteriorate
Plans to redevelop it came to naught and not even its architectural glories could prevent its demolition in
December 2012. In its place today stands a block of flats.

36 Jamaica Street

Grosvenor Building ( 1864-5 )  70-80 Gordon Street

Warehouse ( 1850 - 60s )  in James Watt Street

Warehouse ( b1869 )  in Boden Street Formerly the Eagle Pottery

Gardeners Warehouse  in Jamaica Street This cast-iron fronted building, the oldest in Britain,  was originally a furniture warehouse  for the upholstery and cabinetmakers A Gardner & Son.   The building was constructed in 1856  by architect John Baird,  although the iron work was designed  by ironfounder Robert McConnell. Discover Glasgow - Gardners Warehouse Canmore - Gardners Warehouse

Gardeners Warehouse  in Jamaica Street Discover Glasgow - Gardners Warehouse Canmore - Gardners Warehouse

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