A real glass act!
Stunning window art is one of many highlights inside B-listed mansion
LET there be light... especially if it enters via a striking stained glass window. Few family homes boast these impressive features, which trace their origins back to the 12th Century when they first appeared in churches. Such artistic windows eventually found their way into domestic properties in the second half of the 1800s.
In Glasgow, Charles Rennie Mackintosh fashioned his own brand of stained glass, which leaned heavily on the depiction of stylised roses and became central to the famous ‘Glasgow Style’.
A contemporary of Mackintosh, William James Anderson – who became director of the architectural department of Glasgow School of Art at the age of only 30 – used painted glass as a key feature in Balmory, an imposing red sandstone mansion on an elevated site in the city’s Pollokshields.
The detached villa was built for David Mason – later Sir David – a clothing merchant who would rise to become the Lord Provost.
The fact there has been probably no more than three owners since
1891 means most of Anderson’s incredible painted glazing remains untouched and intact.
These include hallway images of Glasgow Cathedral and the college on High Street, sadly now demolished. Venture upstairs and you encounter even more artwork in the windows of the music room.
On the left of the door is an atmospheric lochside scene – the legend carved into the glass comes from Sir Walter Scott’s Lady of the Lake.
The music room itself is a work of art, with the huge vaulted ceiling dominating everything beneath.
The house is now owned by Tony Currie and his wife, Karin. Mr
Currie was, until this year, the main continuity announcer on BBC Scotland TV and runs from his basement an internet-based radio station, heard in more than 200 countries.
His music room has played host to performances by the likes of entertainer Jimmy Logan, Celtic band Capercaillie, folk singer Mary Sandeman, and Tony Hatch, writer of Petula Clark’s 60s hit Downtown.
Elsewhere, the turret at the front of the property provides lovely dimensions within, in the drawing room on the ground floor and the main bedroom above.
Worthy of special mention is the beautiful Art Deco bathroom, which is still decorated using shiny green and black Vitrolite tiles.
There is a tragic postscript to the life of the designer of this house.
Anderson was a pioneer of the use of reinforced concrete but his reputation was destroyed by the partial collapse of a property he was having constructed on Govan Road in Glasgow.
Sadly, five workmen lost their lives in the accident and Anderson never recovered. He took his own life in March 1900.