Born Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz on 19 May 1744, she was the youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Princess Elizabeth Albertina of Saxe-Hildburghausen. When King George III of Britain succeeded to the throne in 1760, he was 22 and unmarried and the 17 year old Princess Charlotte was an obvious choice for a wife… and, an obvious choice for the name of a street in Hanovarian Glasgow. But first the land needed to be acquired.
The area identified was known as ‘Merkdaily Yard’ which sat on a flood plain of the river Clyde just south of the Gallowgate. Robert Reid, ‘Senex‘ tells us it apparently got the moniker due to the old annual rental being ‘365 marks Scots’, however, Renwick sets us straight, the name had appeared in a will as early as 1726, that of John Luke ‘Bristol John’ a goldsmith. [It should be no surprise that Glasgow a mercantile city is linked with Bristol, a major (slave) trading port of the 18th Century. The transatlantic traffic in enslaved Africans had an enormous effect on Bristol. Between 1698 and 1807, a known 2,108 ships left Bristol for Africa to exchange goods for enslaved Africans and take them to the Caribbean.] The merk daily area was identified for development around 1773 (denoted on Charles Ross’s map of the same year) with initially a square called ‘St. James’ envisaged.
Figs.1 & 2: 1776 Map of Glasgow with St James’s Sq. (After Barrie)
Source: Reproduced with the permission of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery Print Room.
Fig.3: St Andrew’s Parish Church in 1759 from battlements of the Tolbooth. Engraver Robert Paul
Source: Mitchell Library, FA 14/2. Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning. Fig.4: St Andrew’s in Square. Source: © Cicerone
Fig.3 prior to the development (of St Andrew’s Street, the Square and Charlotte Street), ’Merkdaily Yard’ sat due east of St Andrew’s just north of the city wash-house. Merkdaily Street was one of several approaches to the wash-house from the Gallowgate and Cross; the approach would be leveraged to ultimately become Charlotte Street. (Some artistic license has been taken by Paul in the above view. The square building to the left, ‘the wash-house’ b1732, sat directly behind the Church from this line of sight. It has been moved to bring it into view.)
It is probably no accident that this angle has been chosen, excluding the English (Episcopalian) Church b1752 to the south west just out of view.
Between 1777 & 1780 the land was advertised for sale at least twice, before being purchased by Archibald Paterson who laid off the grounds for building purposes. The sale of the Merkdaily Yard to Paterson was good business, with the Gallowgate Green to the south and Allan Dregorn’s St Andrew’s directly to the west it captured a prime building site next to the area that had been earmarked for development, backed, by an Act of Parliament. In addition, it was within easy reach of the Town Hall and the coffee room of the future Tontine at the Cross. An almost perfect location for building. Almost, as the green and banks of the Clyde had not yet been raised nor the weir installed. As such it was prone to flooding on occasion.
One of the earliest glimpses of fashionable Charlotte Street is in the Glasgow Looking Glass, of 23 July 1825, during Glasgow fair, where the rooftops of the houses at the south end of the street can be glimpsed over the trees growing in the verdant rear garden of David Dale:
Source: Glasgow University Library, Special Collections – Sp Coll Bh14-x.8
Our knowledge of the prestigious addresses with their mainly large 5 & 7 bay townhouses on Buchanan, Miller, Virginia, Queen & Buchanan Streets suggest numerous architects & masons were contracted by the numerous residents. Though, it should be noted that Miller Street was the first in the city to specify height, style (Palladian) and form in the Deeds of Title there was still room for individuality on each plot.
Charlotte Street appears to be unique for its strong cohesive design, suggestive of the same hand. A regimented presentation of detached villas with auxiliary outbuildings to their north. The only outlier appearing to be David Dales much larger house (& garden) on the west side, directly off the green.
Charlotte Street, drawn by David Small in the late 19th century, was the only time in the city that a residential view of the merchant & tobacco lord houses was captured whilst still solely domestic. It shows the uniform nature of the façades that are confirmed by later photography.
Fig.7: Charlotte Street looking north, drawn by David Small c1850. Fig.8: Foot of Charlotte Street, west by Joseph Swan 1829 Source: http://www.theGlasgowstory.com
The original plan was for 14 plots, David Dale purchasing plot #8. However, he subsequently purchased a further two plots in 1784 to secure a larger garden for himself. Thus the number of plots was reduced to 12. This might explain why David Dale occupies the prime position in the street and not his business partner, and developer, Paterson who took the plot directly north at no.47.
The plots were 78ft wide & 70ft deep, with a main façade of 45ft north to south; a 24ft & 9ft boundary gap north & south. The larger north gap accommodated a wing 15ft in breadth. Garden walls were stipulated to be between 7-9ft in height.
The size of gardens varied, ranging in length from on average 130ft on the west side to 155-180ft on the east.
Dale’s house & garden the exception, both being much larger than his neighbours due to his purchase of two additional plots enabling him to extend his garden 440ft west and also north to Charlotte Lane from the rear of his property. On the south the street was protected by an entry gate for exclusivity and residents’ security.
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
From Fleming’s map of 1807 one thing immediately jumps out apart form the uniform footprints; the large (in)formal gardens. Of this period, I see no other street arrangement like this in the city. There are individual plots/houses with landscaped gardens but no other street as regular nor impressively captured. Remarkably every owner seems to have imprinted a design creating an informal tapestry; a collective effort in social compliance/climbing.
David Dale’s House, no.76 Charlotte Street:
Plot #8 price £223 16d on 23 vi 1780. (fl1783-1954)
Figs.10-16 : No.76 Charlotte Street with Fluting detail of c1916
Source: Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning. Photographer Unknown
Fluting whilst an ancient form of decoration, pierced fluting as seen here is unusual for Glasgow. Fluting appears to be a motif in the street that is carried from the façade into the interiors as seen on Dale’s fireplace and on the door case of no.52 (still extant). But the intricacy of Dale’s design appears to be unique with the piercing. The design is echoed on the iron work to the rear of the building on the balcony.
Arkwright’s Invention: The mechanised water frame, with the columns of creels… a machine, that later would be central to Dale’s success. The frieze detail, which is amplified at no.76. predates Arkwright’s invention but curiously shares similarities in form.
Figs.18-20: Main Door / Fireplace / Upper staircase to 2nd floor.
Source: Regality vIV. Drawings most likely attributed to A N Paterson, architect. Prior to demolition he allegedly appropriated, for his home, ‘Longcroft’ Helensburgh, one of the decorative urns from the property .
Source: Regality Club, vIV p.119
“The south wing contained the laundry and servants’ bedrooms, the north wing the kitchen, the sculleries, bakehouse and wine-cellar. The principal rooms show (Robert Adam’s) characteristics of elegant design and ornamentation, and the wood-carvings of the fireplace framings are highly artistic. The library, with its domed ceiling and glass doors leading to a balcony, must have been a charming room.”
Mr. A. N. Paterson, architect, has been good enough to favour me with the following detailed description :
“From the irrefragable evidence of the buildings themselves as they exist to this day (those on the west side of the street are little changed externally at least), Mr. Paterson must have done more than merely provide stringent regulations as to the size of the houses in Charlotte Street and their external ornament, for, in the matter of design there can be no doubt that all the buildings from end to end of the street (the flatted tenements between the Gallowgate and Great Hamilton Street not less than the mansions in the more southern portion of it) are the work of one man.”
“With almost equal assurance it may asseverated that this was Robert Adam, the most celebrated architect of his day.… It is therefore extremely likely that Mr. Paterson, from all contemporary accounts a man who cared little for the financial return of his project, compared with its being carried out in the most worthy and complete manner, should have secured the best talent obtainable at the time, particularly when, as already stated, the work was of the magnitude involved in laying out and designing a whole street.”
“The internal evidence is equally strong. In every detail, both of the exterior, and still more notably of the internal finishings, David Dale’s house is eminently characteristic of the refined and thoughtful architecture of the master in question”…”A special characteristic of Adam’s work was the care he bestowed upon, and the grace with which he invested, the internal finishings of his work — the chimney pieces, wainscoting, plaster ceilings, and even the door handles and shutter knobs, and of this an excellent example is furnished in the two chimney pieces and the staircase ceiling of David Dale’s house. Of the house itself, the plan and the general view give a good idea of its general disposition, except that the one of story wing to the south, which previously balanced that to the north, has been partially removed to make way for the addition carried out some years since by the Glasgow Eye Infirmary. While to the street front only two stories are shown, to the back there are four, a basement containing a large kitchen and other offices at the lower level of a half sunk area between the house and garden, and a complete attic with bedrooms and a delightful octagonal private room (Dale’s study) being added to the two principal floors. On these last, and facing the street, are four large rooms, each about 24 feet by 16, which would probably serve as dining-room, library or parlour, and two drawing-rooms, with smaller rooms occupied as bedrooms (in addition to those in the attic) behind. In the centre to the back is a charmingly designed and beautifully executed wheeling stone stair, over which, on the upper floor, is the ceiling already referred to. On either side of the main building are the one-story wings previously mentioned with separate entrances (through little forecourts) from the street, and communicating at once with the main house on the same level, and by separate stair with the basement. Of these, one of the main rooms — it is impossible now to determine the exact distinction in the days of its original occupant, but one, for such an extraordinarily busy man as was its owner — may well have served as a sort of business adjunct to the dwelling house, the other as a continuation of the servants’ offices and apartments to the ground floor and the street. Of the two chimney pieces illustrated, one is from the principal room (drawing room ?) in the south east angle of the first floor, the other from the octagonal room in the top floor.”
David Dale (1739-1806)
Fig.22:David Dale, 1791 by James Tassie.
Source: National Portrait Gallery, Scotland.
Born in Stewarton, Ayrshire. He was apprenticed as a weaver in Paisley and then worked as a weaver’s agent, travelling the country delivering yarn and collecting finished cloth. At the age of 24, Dale set up his own business in Glasgow importing linen yarn from France and Belgium, later expanding into production he would capitalise on Richard Arkwright’s (1732–92) invention of the 1780s; his patented water-frame. Although New Lanark b1785 was not the first, it became one of the largest and most important cotton mills of its period employing over 1,300. He was also an agent for the Royal Bank of Scotland. Dale’s investment was substantial in New Lanark, when Dale’s son-in-law Owen and his partners bought New Lanark in 1799 they paid £60,000, said to be cheap at the price.
It is instructive to note that by 1780 Dale was rich enough to build his mansion on Charlotte Street prior to the New Lanark acquisition.
A religious man, Dale was a founder member of the Old Scotch Independents in 1768. His Christian beliefs were translated into practice at New Lanark where he built a model village for his workers. The workforce included displaced Highlanders and hundreds of (cheap) pauper children from the workhouses of Edinburgh and Glasgow. He married Anne Carolina Campbell, the daughter of John Campbell, an Edinburgh Director of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
In 1799 Dale’s daughter Caroline married Robert Owen. Dale sold New Lanark to his son-in-law that same year and moved to Cambuslang. He bought Rosebank House in Cambuslang from ex Lord Provost of Glasgow John Dunlop (the ‘killing provost’ a true but rather unfair moniker. The ‘mercy killing provost’ doesn’t quite have the same ring). He was the last person to engage Robert Adam prior to his death, his last known drawings being for Rosebank.
His son-in-law would move into no.76 after his marriage.
Robert Owen (1771-1858)
Fig.23: Ann Caroline Dale, artist unknown (1778-1831)
Source: New Lanark Trust Fig.24: Robert Owen, Henry William Pickersgill (1782–1875)
Source: New Lanark World Heritage Site.
Although Owen’s period of ownership lasted only 10 years longer than that of his father-in-law, David Dale, Owen instituted a wide range of workplace, social, and educational reforms that led to the idea of New Lanark as an ‘ideal’ community and of Owen himself as a Socialist. Owen described his work at New Lanark as
“the most important experiment for the happiness of the human race that has yet been instituted in any part of the world”.
In 1807 he is still listed in the directory as residing at 43 Charlotte Street (later to become no.76 after 1826.)
Robert Blair’s House, 52 Charlotte Street, the survivor.
Figs.25-27: No. 52 Charlotte Street. Source: © Cicerone
(Note the scalloped doorway which it is thought links Glasgow architecture of this period with the eastern seaboard of the USA. More research required.)
No.52 gives a potential clue for one of the sources of inspiration; St Andrew’s, Gunton, Norfolk in the landscaped park of Gunton Hall. It is Robert Adam’s only complete (temple) church in England, executed 1767-68. Given its significance for Adam, given the reference to St Andrew was the architect inspired to pay homage here in Charlotte Street, part of a church complex dedicated to Scotland’s patron saint? The Adam design as executed at Gunton was altered. It is in the original plan that a possible influence for the fluted frieze above the doorway at no.52 can be seen. The architect now able to resolve an earlier vision. See below (SM Adam volume 43/11) https://collections.soane.org/prints/item-print?id=THES100751
Fig.28: St. Andrew’s, Gunton (relatively plain frieze with rosettes minus fluting). Source: unknown Figs.29 & 30: Original elevation complete with fluting and enclosed rosettes. (SM Adam volume 43/11) possibly by hand of William Hamilton. Courtesy of http://www.soane.org
The Street (East Side)
Source: Canmore 1098719
In this shot we essentially see what remains on the eastern side after the projection of London Street. William Urquhart’s house removed, the only original house missing (but still extant) is no.40 of Dr Rev John Lockhart at the foot of the street. It would later become St Aloysius College.
From LHS (1807 Nos.):
no.27 J McKenzie of Garnkirk
no.30 William Taylor (drapery warehouse owner)
no.33 James Jackson (St Andrew’s (later Trinity) Free Church)
no.37 David Black Tobacco Merchant (later St Alphonsus School)
The Street (West Side):
Source: Virtual Mitchell
From LHS (1807 Nos.):
no.43 David Dale of Rosebank (Eye Dispensary, Salvation Army, 1955 Our Lady and St Francis Secondary School)
no.47 Archibald Paterson, mill owner (c1892 Free Gospel Church, 1923 Our Lady and St Francis Secondary School)
no.49 William McNeil (1846 Franciscan Convent & later Our Lady and St Francis Secondary School)
no.52 John Craig of Auchinairn (1846 Franciscan Convent) no.55 Robert Blair (Now known as no.52 ‘the survivor’)
’30’ Charlotte Street
Fig.33: 30 Charlotte Street with fireplace inset (later home of ‘Camp Coffee’ c1898.)
Source: Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums.
This technically falls outside the southern end of the original street as evidenced by the gate. The numbering has changed due to the multiple changes on the eastern side. It’s curious that the flutting detail on the fireplace appears to mirror what we see on David Dale’s house and indeed still extant at no.52. Was this salvaged from an earlier house or reproduced?
John Stuart Blackie FRSE (28 July 1809 – 2 March 1895) was a Scottish scholar and man of letters. He was a keen Scottish nationalist, who raised most of the money to endow a chair of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh, and was an outspoken advocate of the reform of the education system.
He was born in the above house, at 30 Charlotte Street, the son of Kelso-born banker Alexander Blackie (d.1846) and Helen Stodart. He was educated at the New Academy and afterwards at the Marischal College, in Aberdeen, where his father was manager of the Commercial Bank.
After attending classes at Edinburgh University (1825–1826), Blackie spent three years at Aberdeen as a student of theology. In 1829 he went to Germany, and after studying at Göttingen and Berlin (where he came under the influence of Heeren, Müller, Schleiermacher, Neander and Böckh) he accompanied Bunsen to Italy and Rome. The years spent abroad extinguished his former wish to enter the Church, and at his father’s desire he gave himself up to the study of law.
Blackie married Elizabeth (known as Eliza) Wyld in 1842. They had no children. She is buried with him. He was the uncle of Sir Alexander Kennedy.
The Volunteer Bar
Figs.35 & 36: The Volunteer Bar at the corner of Charlotte Street and East Charlotte Lane, Calton.
Source: Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums
This bar sat on the north east of the junction with Charlotte Lane, technically on old Merkdaily Street, not Charlotte Street. The Lane was necessary as it marked the southern limit of the old ‘Merkdaily’ street boundaries already extant in 1778. This would merge with the newly projected street to form Charlotte Street. The 3 stories and two windows on gable end match the format seen in St Andrew’s Street, the quoin stones the only departure from that seen in St Andrew’s Street.
This is possibly 21 Charlotte Street: No.21 was the townhouse of merchant Walter Ewing Maclae of Cathkin and also for a few years a girls’ boarding school of a certain Mrs Candlish. Her original school location is still extant on Virginia Street which she ran for almost thirty years. She was Robert Burns’s Mauchline Belle, ‘the one with wit’. Her son, Robert Smith Candlish, a moderator of the Free Church, was an educationalist like his mother and is commemorated in the stained glass window of Charles Wilson’s old Trinity College, Lynedoch Street. His championing of the Schools Act of 1872 and handing over some 500 schools to their local parishes does not get enough credit for helping drive Scottish education forward in the late 19th Century.
Figs.37 & 38: Stained Glass window Trinity College by David Gauld (1865-1936). Source: © Cicerone
St Andrew’s Street
Figs.39 & 40: St Andrews Street looking east c1790. Source: ‘Glasgow Delineated’ John Scott
Both engravings appear to reference the same source. The Left hand image capturing the auxiliary outbuildings seen in Charlotte Street. The three stories matching the elevation seen in the Square. Most likely attributable to William Hamilton.
McLellan’s Arch
Fig.41: McLellan’s Arch on Monteith Row c1893-1921
Source: Mitchell Library GC Postcards – Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning. Fig.42: McLellan’s Arch at foot of Charlotte Street. Source: Canmore. Fig.43: McLellan’s Arch at western entry to the green. Source: © Cicerone Figs.44 & 45: McLellan’s Arch: Orpheus and the three Graces. Source: © Cicerone
It is somewhat fitting that the main central archway from the façade of Adams’ New Assembly Rooms on Ingram Street (b1796) should have survived and found its way to the foot of Charlotte Street, if only for a short period (fl1922-1991). As the architect of Charlotte Street was none other than William Hamilton, ‘architect from London’, who had been a senior draughtsman in their London office for a decade (fl.1765-1774). It explains the persistent rumours of the Adams having played a role in the street, and in some ways they did. Their legacy living on through the neo-classical architecture of one William Hamilton(c1730-c1795).1
Decline: the Irish question
Why was Charlotte Street so badly conserved to the extent that only one house now remains? Here we had the finest residential street scape of early Georgian Glasgow. Combined with the St Andrew’s Square precinct an architectural jewel. As the city developed west and with it the old calvanist money, London Street struck the first blow taking with it the two north most plots. Later the influx of Irish and other poor immigrants settling in the vicinity around the east end mills, potteries and factories struck the next blow. They would have encircled Charlotte Street, cutting it off, and gradually as the last of the old money moved out, moved in. We don’t need to look far for the evidence. The old Free Church fell into disrepair due to lack of a congregation, whilst several Catholic institutions, which some of the history books rather indignantly refer, sprang up. These newcomers had no attachment (a cultural memory) with the street. Couple this with a dismissive and sometimes hostile attitude to the Irish and as time passed the city may have become somewhat indifferent to the locale by the mere presence of the Irish Catholic population. A recipe for decline. However, in the 1950s when David Dale’s house came under threat thankfully there was an outcry, some people had finally realised the importance of what remained. But not enough voices were heard to save it for posterity.
Hopefully the sad and isolated no.52, does not succumb to the same indifference. With a major development proposed to its south it will be interesting to see what safeguards are put in place by authorities to protect its fabric (Virginia Galleries springs to mind). The new development yet another box fresh, oven ready homogeneous design. Devoid of any redeeming features, it will age quicker than a deep fried mars bar. One can only hope it has the same life expectancy. Utilitas, at the expense of firmitas & venustas is not architecture; well not one that Adam nor William Hamilton would recognise.
Postscript: slavery
This piece has been about the architecture and not a social commentary. More able are qualified to discuss. However, I cannot help but acknowledge that whilst researching the article and reviewing tax records with respect to house servants in the 1780s more than once would you see an entry against Charlotte street, for example ‘negro’ or ‘a negro George’. A reminder that Glasgow was most certainly not immune from trafficking in enslaved persons. And that for someone like David Dale who advocated against slavery he was living beside neighbours who obviously had no qualms with the exploitation and barbarity at its root.
- Attribution revealing the name ‘William Hamilton’ with thanks to George Fairfull-Smith, ‘Wealth of a City’, 2010. ↩︎
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