Thursday 24th February 2022 | 7.30pm GMT | via Zoom

John Betjeman (1906-84) was an English poet, writer and broadcaster, who was also a passionate defender of Victorian architecture. In Pavement in the Sun, 1967, Jack House provides an account of John Betjeman’s impression of Glasgow. The visitor “was so entranced by Victorian Glasgow. ‘The headquarters of the Victorian Society shouldn’t be in London,’ he said. ‘They should be here. This is the greatest Victorian city in the world.”

The vast majority of the city as seen today dates from the 19th century. As a result, Glasgow has an impressive heritage of Victorian architecture: the Glasgow City Chambers; the main building of the University of Glasgow, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott; and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, designed by Sir John W. Simpson are examples.

However, we have seen high profile cases in recent years of significant Victorian buildings that have fallen into disrepair, neglect, been subject to fire and demolished. GCHT has produced an annual ‘snapshot report’ on the current state of Glasgow’s historic built environment since 2018. The 2019 report showed that the condition of buildings in Glasgow on the Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland has deteriorated over the last decade.

Is Glasgow really the ‘Greatest Victorian City in the World’ as Betjamen famously said? What can we learn from other cities with similar densities of significant historic buildings about how to protect this irreplaceable heritage? Is that heritage worthy of World Heritage Site status, and is that something that we, as a city, would want?

Join us for a lively debate on this fascinating topic. Find out what our expert panellists think about Glasgow’s Victorian heritage and the best route to protecting it, then we’ll open it up to you for questions and discussion.

Chair: Glasgow Lord Provost Philip Braat.

Panellists:

• Simon Thurley, Architectural historian, broadcaster and heritage champion
• Christina Sinclair, Director at Edinburgh World Heritage Trust
• Fiona Sinclair, Conservation Architect, author and historian
• Taylor Cross-Whiter, GCHT Heritage Officer

Free, booking required, donations welcome. 

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Please note: Payment is taken via PayPal but you do not need to have a PayPal account to pay online. 

We are using Zoom to broadcast our live talks. You can join these events as a participant without creating a Zoom account. You do not need to have a webcam or a microphone to join the event as a participant.

All events are subtitled. We aim to make our events as accessible as possible but if you feel that you might need some additional help, please let us know when you book your ticket or get in touch in advance. We’re open to feedback and would welcome your ideas on how we can improve in this area.

You will receive instructions on joining the event by email. If you haven’t received anything by midday on the day of the event, please check your spam folder and then contact us.

All events are recorded and everyone who has booked will be sent a link to the recording to watch again after the event. We are a small team and this can take a couple of weeks so please bear with us!

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Wednesday 16th March 2022 | 7.30pm BST | via Zoom

Most football fans suffer under the delusion that England invented football. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ged O’Brien will use the Sulman Map to look at a small pocket of Glasgow: around the Green, the Old College and the Barracks. As the City grew beyond this popular district, football advanced across the globe. The Combination Game was spread by players christened ‘Scotch Professors’, in recognition of their extraordinary skills. Their gifts arose from a Scottish communitarian and scientific culture. Football was brought to perfection in the brilliance of the Glasgow of the late nineteenth century.

Ged O’Brien is the founder of the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park. He is the discoverer of Andrew Watson: the world’s most influential player of colour. He is the author of ‘Played in Glasgow’ and is currently writing ‘The Scottish Game: How Scotland invented Modern World Football’.

Free, booking required, donations welcome. 

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Please note: Payment is taken via PayPal but you do not need to have a PayPal account to pay online. 

We are using Zoom to broadcast our live talks. You can join these events as a participant without creating a Zoom account. You do not need to have a webcam or a microphone to join the event as a participant.

All events are subtitled. We aim to make our events as accessible as possible but if you feel that you might need some additional help, please let us know when you book your ticket or get in touch in advance. We’re open to feedback and would welcome your ideas on how we can improve in this area.

You will receive instructions on joining the event by email. If you haven’t received anything by midday on the day of the event, please check your spam folder and then contact us.

All events are recorded and everyone who has booked will be sent a link to the recording to watch again after the event. We are a small team and this can take a couple of weeks so please bear with us!

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Rescheduled date: Thursday 10th March 2022 | 6-8pm GMT | Mesa, 567 Duke Street, Glasgow, G31 1PY

The story goes that Thomas Sulman took to the skies in a hot air balloon to draw his intricate Bird’s Eye View of Glasgow in 1864. It’s thought the advent of hot air ballooning in the 1820’s had played a major role in the popularisation of panoramas like Sulman’s, as the higher vantage point increased the field of view of the artist, allowing for greater sweep and broader perspective. 

Taking hot air balloon baskets as our inspiration, this Gallus Glasgow workshop will be led by Max Johnson, a Glasgow based forager who runs the The Wash House Garden, which includes an organic urban market garden, basketry and workshops. 

Join us to see how Max creates his beautiful handwoven baskets, using locally foraged dogwood sticks. Max will then talk about what foraged woods we can use for basic basketry work and will teach participants how to make a mini-wreath out of dogwood. Next, we’ll use the skills learned in making the wreath, plus some new techniques, to make a tension tray, or Catalan platter.

You’ll be provided with all the materials you need to try your hand at this fascinating traditional craft, including dogwood sticks and secateurs, and can even take them home with you to keep so that you can continue to work on your projects!

Refreshments will also be served.  

Please note this is an in-person event and current Covid guidance will be complied with. 

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Wednesday 26th January 2022 | 7.30pm – 9pm GMT | via Zoom

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Please note: Payment is taken via PayPal but you do not need to have a PayPal account to pay online. 

We are using Zoom to broadcast our live talks. You can join these events as a participant without creating a Zoom account. You do not need to have a webcam or a microphone to join the event as a participant.

All events are subtitled. We aim to make our events as accessible as possible but if you feel that you might need some additional help, please let us know when you book your ticket or get in touch in advance. We’re open to feedback and would welcome your ideas on how we can improve in this area.

You will receive instructions on joining the event by email. If you haven’t received anything by midday on the day of the event, please check your spam folder and then contact us.

All events are recorded and everyone who has booked will be sent a link to the recording to watch again after the event. We are a small team and this can take a couple of weeks so please bear with us!

You might also be interested in…

Wednesday 9th March 2022 | 7.30pm BST | via Zoom

At 41 Rottenrow, hidden in plain sight, the Glasgow Lock Hospital for Unfortunate Females once stood. Opening its doors in 1845, this new purpose built hospital was Glasgow’s only provision for women with venereal disease, and it was quickly overwhelmed. 

The Annual Report covering the Lock’s first 10 years indicates thousands of women and girls applying for treatment. They are listed as mill girls, servants, widows, actresses, ballet girls and even schoolgirls. They were cited in their diseased state by codewords and terms such as ‘newly fallen’ or ‘hardened’. They were kept in reformatory conditions and medical treatments were more experimental than effective, for example mercury vapour baths were used as a potential cure It was common knowledge that few survived their stay at the Lock.  

Join us for this evening talk by Anna Forrest to find out more about this infamous place: who were these women and how did they end up there, and what happened to them once there? 

Anna Forrest has carried out extensive research on the Glasgow Lock Hospital. Her interest began whilst she was working as a Librarian at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, which features a ‘Lock Room’ containing records relating to the hospital. Over many years Anna pieced together the history of the hospital, which she had originally been told didn’t exist, with the aim of making sure the public knew the stories of  the women and girls treated there. 

Free, booking required, donations welcome. 

[ESPRESSO_TICKET_SELECTOR event_id=18933]

Please note: Payment is taken via PayPal but you do not need to have a PayPal account to pay online. 

We are using Zoom to broadcast our live talks. You can join these events as a participant without creating a Zoom account. You do not need to have a webcam or a microphone to join the event as a participant.

All events are subtitled. We aim to make our events as accessible as possible but if you feel that you might need some additional help, please let us know when you book your ticket or get in touch in advance. We’re open to feedback and would welcome your ideas on how we can improve in this area.

You will receive instructions on joining the event by email. If you haven’t received anything by midday on the day of the event, please check your spam folder and then contact us.

All events are recorded and everyone who has booked will be sent a link to the recording to watch again after the event. We are a small team and this can take a couple of weeks so please bear with us!

You might also be interested in…

Wednesday 9th February 2022 | 7.30pm BST | via Zoom

Can you imagine a different Glasgow, a city where women are commemorated in statues and streets and buildings?

Join author Sara Sheridan as she talks about her guidebook to that alternative city. Her 2019 book Where are the Women? remaps Scotland as if women’s achievements were memorialised in our built and rural landscape in the same way as men’s are. These imagined streets, buildings, statues and monuments are dedicated to real women, telling their often untold or unknown stories. In this talk, Sara will share some of the amazing stories she uncovered through her research.

Sara Sheridan is a writer and activist who is interested particularly in female history. She has written more than 20 books. Sara is most famous for her two series of historical novels: one, the Mirabelle Bevan novels, noir mysteries set in 1950s Brighton, and the other exploring on real lives of late Victorian adventurers. This alternative guidebook was chosen by the David Hume Institute for the First Minister’s Summer Reading List. Sara is currently writing a novel set in 1846 in Glasgow.

Free, booking required, donations welcome. 

[ESPRESSO_TICKET_SELECTOR event_id=18046]

Please note: Payment is taken via PayPal but you do not need to have a PayPal account to pay online. 

We are using Zoom to broadcast our live talks. You can join these events as a participant without creating a Zoom account. You do not need to have a webcam or a microphone to join the event as a participant.

All events are subtitled. We aim to make our events as accessible as possible but if you feel that you might need some additional help, please let us know when you book your ticket or get in touch in advance. We’re open to feedback and would welcome your ideas on how we can improve in this area.

You will receive instructions on joining the event by email. If you haven’t received anything by midday on the day of the event, please check your spam folder and then contact us.

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