Charing Cross Mansions... and the Square Mile of Murder...

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Charing Cross Mansion

            Charing Cross Mansions is said to be the first building in Glasgow built in red sandstone and, other than the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, which is not a residential building, is arguably one of the most-grand buildings in Glasgow. Unlike the Art Gallery & Museum, the Charing Cross building was designed by not only a Scotsman but a Glaswegian, John James Burnet. Burnet had studied under the famous French designer Jean-Louis Pascal at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. And it shows. The mansions are in the French-Renaissance style, curving around the corner which connects Sauchiehall Street with St. George’s Road, with a spire rising from its central frontage to balance the sweep of the whole. The central clock was another clock on which the hands had stopped. When I lived in the mansions for a period of six months it was always midnight. Some might argue, midnight or midday, but given that I was twenty-five at the time and the mansions sit on the corner of Sauchiehall Street with its pubs, casino, late-night restaurants and take-aways, it was always midnight for me. And as this was a period of my life when I was also gloriously idle having just returned from sea with enough money to indulge myself for a while, I seldom saw midday unless it was to close the curtains which I had left open the night before and go back to bed. I expect the clock is working now.

Another clock where time stands still

            Burnet was born in 1857 and died in 1938. His birthplace was not far from the mansions, only a short walk-away at Blythswood Hill. His father had also been a prominent architect who designed a number of great Glasgow buildings and whose name will crop up later. John James’s father and mother were Congregationalists, part of the Protestant church in which each congregation runs its own affairs, independently and autonomously. I bring his religion up not because it is unavoidable in Glasgow but because it seems odd to me that a man from such a puritan-inspired background should design such a flamboyant building. Burnet’s parents did not want their son to study in a Catholic country, especially as the Paris Commune was governing when young Burnet suggested the move. But, by the end of the year, the Commune was supressed by the French Army, and the Third Republic under its first President, Adolphe Thiers, was declared and Burnet began his studies the following year. As well as the French-Renaissance style, Burnet was also inspired by Italian Baroque and contemporary American architecture which he had seen on his visits to the United States in 1896, and again in 1908 and 1910.

Burnet had more than a few prestigious contracts. In 1906 he received the contract from the British Museum to design the Edward VII Galleries. If Burnet had his way, he would have demolished a section of Bloomsbury to build a grand Parisian-style avenue, but money ran out and only the Galleries were finished. After the First World War he took a leading role in designing war memorials commissioned by the Imperial War Graves Commission and his work is found in Gallipoli, Palestine and Suez. Despite his success and honours, Burnet did not die a happy man. His health was poor, he had disagreements with business partners and there was a financial scandal at the Glasgow office. He seems to have retired reluctantly, unable to meet the physical demands of work he clearly loved. He has a considerable legacy of buildings still standing in Glasgow, as has his father, and between them, Glasgow owes a great deal of its peculiar beauty to their determination to design the best buildings they could and as they saw fit, which is far more than can be said for a particular period of philistinism which ruled at Glasgow Council almost until the 1980s and has had such a detrimental impact on the city and on the work of both Burnet.

Burnet’s father-in-law, James David Marwick, also played a considerable part in the history of Glasgow. He was Town Clark for thirty-one years up till the late 19^th century, during a period when the City was completely transformed, a transformation most of which he guided. Despite the fact that Glasgow owes such a great deal to the Burnets and Marwick, as far as I'm aware they have no monument other than the buildings designed and commissioned by them which are still standing. Glasgow’s George Square has four statues; of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, James Watt, and Sir Robert Peel. I can understand why James Watt is there – he was an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow where his interest in steam engines first began and which has led to his lasting fame. As for the others, I would, grudgingly, allocate a place to Burns, but Scott belongs in Edinburgh and I have no idea what the rationale behind a statue to Sir Robert Peel was. The Square and the City Chambers as we see them today were more or less completed in 1889. Perhaps it was too soon to include a statue of the still living Marwick or Burnet Senior, although I’m certain they weren’t even considered. As for Burnet junior, his monument might have been the City Chambers building itself but his submission for the design was rejected in favour of that by William Young of Paisley, whose only notable design is the City Chambers. If ever George Square is redeveloped I’d suggest getting rid of Peel and Scott and replacing them with Marwick and Burnet Jr. I never liked Scott’s long-winded novels of a romanticised Scottish history designed for an English audience. If a Scottish literary figure should be memorialised at George Square then I'd opt for someone more relevant to the City and more deserving on the score of literary merit, someone like Tobias Smollett who was born not far from the City in West Dunbartonshire and educated at the University of Glasgow. The irony of Smollett’s situation is that he is among sixteen Scottish authors depicted on the lower portion of Scott’s monument in Edinburgh. I blame the English, with whom Scott was very popular, and the Anglified taste of Edinburgh, for whom Smollett was too anarchic. A more fitting monument to Smollett than as a footnote beneath Scott is to found in the south of France where a street in Nice has been named after him. Vive La France!

The Zoology building of Glasgow University

I admit a bias towards Burnet, probably occasioned by personal associations. Not only do I have happy memories of my stay in Charing Cross Mansion but I once worked, briefly, at Glasgow University, in a building directly adjacent to another Burnet design – the Glasgow University Zoology Department. It was winter and, when the weather was fine, I would have a coffee and a smoke outside, sitting directly across from this building which dated from 1922. Its American influence is obvious. With the low winter sun on its pale stonework the building looked like a prop from an Edward Hopper painting. I found the building, its stones, its lines, the shape of its windows, its entranceway, very conducive to day-dreaming. I never went inside and I’m glad I didn’t. The notion of a building dedicated to Zoology filled my imagination with all sorts of wonders as to what the interior might contain. I pictured a zoological Indiana Jones collecting rare and obscure specimens from all over the world and I didn’t want the reality to disappoint. The Zoology building is not a famous building. It is tucked out of the way, seen only by students, visitors, academics and other university staff who might be inclined to pay it any attention. But it is worth looking at and easily found. Wander up Byres Road, take a right turn at University place and on the second right, just before it joins University Avenue, there is an entrance generally used for University vehicles. A short walk from there takes you to the Zoology building on the right-hand side. No one will stop you or ask you what you’re looking for. They’re a very friendly lot. They might even let you take a look inside. Don’t do it. Be content with the façade and the possibility of what might be inside – the luminescent feather of an Alicanto bird, the third leg from the Yatagarasu, the coat of a blue tiger, or the 80ft skin of the Anaconda caught by Sir Percy Fawcett on his penultimate trip up the Amazon. Who knows? If you don’t go inside to be disappointed anything is possible.

 The worst thing about living at Charing Cross Mansions was the view. My living room looked out on an ugly orange coloured branch of the Clydesdale bank built in 1980 by the architectural firm of Walter Underwood & Partners. The only thing which distracts from the ugliness of this building is the M8 motorway running directly past it and which is responsible for the bank’s existence. I don’t know if Walter Underwood himself was responsible for the design but if he was, he was clearly more of a businessman than an architect. No one with the slightest aesthetic sense would have designed such a thing. It is immensely ugly, in fact, a new category of ugliness should be invented for it. It is as if it were designed in an act of will-full perversity to be as ugly as possible by a sociopath who hated buildings, hated architecture, and wanted to punish everyone passing by who was forced to look upon it. If it disappeared tomorrow no one would lament the loss. It is anti-architecture, architecture of irrelevance.

Clydesdale Bank, Charring Cross 

Charing Cross before the improvement.

Glasgow Council's Urban Improvement of Charing Cross.

It wasn’t always the case that Charing Cross mansions looked onto a scene of urban dystopia from a sci-fi film. Charing Cross was once a beautiful section - if not the most beautiful section - of the city and the mansions had faced the Grand Hotel, a city-landmark in its day. All the other surrounding buildings were of a similar quality, as you can still see if you look towards St. George’s Cross mansions diagonally opposite Charing Cross towards Woodland’s Road, and which were designed coincidentally, but bearing no relation, by another Burnet – Frank Burnet.

St. George's Mansions

In the 1960s it was decided to reduce Glasgow’s traffic congestion. A motorway was designed running from south to north, not around the City but through it, and which split the city in two just as surely as the river did. The man who designed the motorway - and who shall remain nameless such is his infamy - is very proud of his creation and defends it to this day despite decades of accusations of vandalism and barbarity. It is said he did more damage to Glasgow than the Luftwaffe bombers of the Second World War. He, also, was only following orders. Charing Cross is merely a portion of the swath of destruction cut through the city by the Glasgow City Council planning department. Despite campaigns to preserve it, the Grand Hotel was demolished in 1969, but by the late 70s, the protest was so wide-spread and vociferous that the plans for the east and south portions of the redevelopment were cancelled. It was too late for Charing Cross. The damage was already done. As late as 2017 plans were still being unveiled to ‘heal the wound’, as the Glasgow Herald called it, and build over the stretch of the M8 at Charing Cross, essentially converting what is now an open sore into a tunnelled section. As of 2019, nothing has been done. If Glasgow Council moves at its usual rate it’ll probably be done in another 20 years.

The old view with the Grand Hotel at the left.

The new view. 

I once worked with a man from Dublin who visited Glasgow with his girlfriend. He said they had wandered around the centre of the city and along Sauchiehall Street until they came to Charing Cross. When they saw the motorway, they thought there would be very little beyond and turned back, such was the barrier they saw before them. I told him he had been only minutes from the Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum, Byres Road, University Avenue and the University buildings, the Hunterian Museum and the Botanic Gardens.

I know of another curious incident related to the M8 and Charing Cross Mansions. A pedestrian footbridge was built behind the Clydesdale bank to link Woodside Crescent to Renfrew Street, making it easier for people to cross the busy junction where my Irish friend turned back. The footbridge passes the left corner of Charing Cross Mansions. At that point, the mansions have a rounded turret-like structure. I lived across the landing from one of these flats with the rounded room. After the old woman who had lived there all her life, her parents having lived there before her, died, the flat underwent extensive renovation. I had become friendly with a couple of the builders and went for a pint with them now and again. One day, they told me they had made an amazing discovery. In stripping the old wallpaper in the hallway, they had found a doorway blocked up by plywood. They tore the wood away, opened the door and found a room which had been sealed-up for at least thirty years. It was the round room which faced out onto the footbridge. No one had thought to wonder where the room in the turret had disappeared to. When told about it, the old woman’s son remembered that his mother had the room sealed when the bridge was built. Because of its height and close proximity to the building, people crossing the bridge could look directly in on it. She had no further use for the room and it had been concealed so long ago that everyone in the family had forgotten about it.

Corner round tower of Charing Cross Mansions

A random shooting once took place at the Charing Cross corner of Sauchiehall Street in the early 1990s. I remember it because I had walked past the spot a few minutes before the shots were fired and I had heard them after I had passed and wondered what the noise was. I was with an old girlfriend at the time. We had just returned to Glasgow on the train from Stranraer which meets the ferry from Ireland. The train had been late arriving, it was the early hours of the morning, the streets were busy with the Saturday night crowd and hundreds of English fans who were in Glasgow for an International game that had been played that day. We couldn’t get a taxi anywhere. We decided to walk from Central Station along Sauchiehall Street hoping to find a taxi in the rank outside the casino at Charing Cross, but there was none. At that time there was a burger van across the intersection. I was hungry. Rather than wait at the taxi rank outside the casino we went there. The shots came while we were sitting eating hot-dogs at a lop-sided old fountain outside the ugly Clydesdale bank I mentioned earlier. Six people were injured and one died, a student. The shots were fired indiscriminately before the gunman turned the gun on himself. Reports said he had a Browning 9mm automatic. I once fired a Browning 9mm automatic. It carries 13 rounds and is very powerful for such a small weapon. The shooter was a man who lived with his elderly parents. He was 24 at the time of the shooting. Predictably, he was described as ‘a loner who kept himself to himself’. His sole companion, it seems, was his dog. He was not a friendly sort who would chat with his neighbours. They didn’t like him. He died in hospital of his self-inflicted wounds and no one knows what provoked the attack.

The girlfriend I was with at the time made no big deal about the fact that we were only minutes away from the shooting and might even have been involved if we had lingered there or taken a little longer to walk along the road. She wasn’t one to over-dramatize things like that. We hadn’t been involved and that was good enough for her. I liked that quality about her.

Was it this event that the photographer was drawing attention to? It seemed improbable. But then, Charing Cross was what Jack House called the very centre of the Square Mile of Murder.

The Square Mile of Murder with Charing Cross at Centre