Glasgow

Glasgow - A change is going to come 


Glasgow Cathedral, dating from 1179, seen from The Necropolis




On March 5, 1971, Edwin Morgan recorded an incident in Glasgow that perhaps caught something of the time.  He wrote about it in his Instamatic Poems, seeing two young men throw an innocent couple into a plate glass window and then loot the shop and escape. 

It is a sharp, clear night

In Sauchiehall Street

In the background two drivers

Keep their eyes on the road





Sauchiehall Street in festive mood

 

Sometime not long after I passed through Glasgow, arriving on a coach in the and having a few hours to spare before my connection.  The city was deserted.  I could find nowhere open.  Nothing to eat or drink.  Then, at a magic moment, the pubs opened.

And they were full. 




Busy Saturday night in The State



This time I arrive at the Central Station, and the city has its arms open, though there is a sober atmosphere, following the St Andrew's Day disaster, when a police helicopter crashed into the busy Clutha pub, only hours before.  I walk up through the streets, bright neon inviting me to buy comfort.



We never close....  Sauchiehall Street

In the morning I rise early to explore.  It is a bright Sunday, and the streets are quiet.  Edwin Morgan's city has changed.  No longer,

Meth-men mutter on benches

pawed by river fog.  Monteith Row

sweats coldly, crumbles, dies

slowly

perhaps?  But

All shadows are alive.

And traces of the old city still haunt the streets.  The Lion Chambers at ground level are empty and the art deco splendour of its upper floors stands desolate and forgotten. 



Faded splendour - The Lion Chambers on Hope Street

And everywhere there are touches of,

Clammy midnight, moonless mist.

A cigarette glows and fades on a cough.

(Edwin Morgan: Glasgow Green)





Old Habits..... Still very much in evidence





I walk down Hope Street, noting the emptiness of the upper floors.  By the Grand Central Hotel a lonely fireman stands, masked, hiding geo-cached secrets from around the world in the still morning.

 

Grand Central Hotel, part of the Central Station



The Clyde slips past in the sunshine, as if nothing was new, or old, or amiss.  But its stillness belies the drama at the end of Bridgegate. 



The quiet Clyde, where a Celtic Tiger stalks a ball of wool



Two helicopters whirr above the scene, hanging perilously in the air, while lines of police cars and vans block all the roads around.  Blue and white tapes flit in the breeze, and quiet police in high viz jackets stand to keep the peace.  In Stockwell Street the press are gathered, waiting, watching, stamping in the chill.

 

The press at The Clutha, waiting for news



 

Police and Fire Services on the roof of The Clutha - the helicopter's tail just visible

This accident was the single biggest loss of life in Glasgow since an explosion at the ICL/Stockline Plastics factory in May 2004, when nine people died.  When the helicopter 'dropped like a stone' on the Clutha bar at 10.25pm on Friday, November 29th its three occupants and six unsuspecting members of the public within the building were killed outright.  Many others were injured, several very seriously.  The pub was full, with at least 120 people listening to the ska band, Esperanza.

  



Celtic Pussy Cat - Street Art



I walk on, past a vivid expression of unexpected danger painted on a nearby wall.  And I wander into Glasgow Green, past the colossal monument to Nelson's naval victories to the delicate elegance of the Winter Gardens.

The Winter Gardens, attached to the People's Palace in Glasgow Green

And then there is the Doulton Fountain, crowned by Victoria, 14 metres in the air, displaying scenes of Empire, representing the colonies.  It has stood here, unscathed since 1890, but what will come of it in the independent years?  Will Glasgow rename itself, following in the steps of other cities once graced with statues of her majesty, like Madras....?



The Doulton Fountain, the largest terracotta fountain in the world, Glasgow Green

Other artwork, less obviously polemical, graces the city walls. A robin, a black grouse, and a red squirrel stare at me as I pass, questioning my intrusion on their territory. 



Natural History - a city centre mural



But even their tenure is temporary.  Glasgow, like all cities, is reinventing itself.  One of William Burrell's first purchases for his collection was painted by a Dutch Artist on April 17th, 1868, recording demolition of parts of Paris after the 1848 revolution.  Napoleon III ordered large scale improvements to water supplies and sewerage, but also wanted to widen streets to make them less easy to barricade.  



Paris, Demolition of the Rue Des Francs-Bourgeois, 1868, by Johan Barthold Jongkind, in the Burrell Collection



In Glasgow's centre the old tenements are going fast, exposing the daily life of the past, making way for bright new futures.



Out with the old.....


But the past will not go away easily.  Dominating the city is the Necropolis, to which all must make their way.  The views across to distant hills, and wind farms, are grand, and from here the dead may survey the changes that come and go.



Glasgow Necropolis



The great, the good, and the ordinary are interred here.  The victims of the Clutha will make their way to this hill in time, and some will be remembered with flowers.

 

A chrysanthemum for the twinkling of an eye in The Necropolis

 

But not before the prayers are said and the grief is outpoured.  In the great gothic Church of Scotland cathedral, dedicated to St Mungo, four children light candles for the dead, and the Reverend Dr Laurence Whitley speaks of defiance in the face of suffering.  Our great and vibrant and irrepressible city shall stand together with our suffering ones and hand in hand go forward into the light.....

The end of the Service, St Mungo's

The choir sings Lux Eterna by Elgar, and the congregation stand to join in In Heavenly Love Abiding by Anna Laetitia Waring.  The press move out, and the people of Glasgow take coffee in the nave.



After the Service, St Mungo's

I cross the road to Glasgow's oldest house, where the table is bare, and the centuries of inhabitants, including those who ran a sweet shop on the ground floor, have departed.  Behind the building is the St Nicholas Physic garden, where samples of medieval medicinal plants soothe the troubled air.

Provand's Lordship, built in 1471 as part of St Nicholas's Hospital.



I take the 57 bus out to Pollok Park, to wander amazed amongst the treasures of the Burrell Collection.  Water infiltration into the insulation layer of the roof is due to close this for some years, so see it now if you can.  Sir William Burrell (1861-1958), a Glaswegian shipping merchant, collected 11,000 works of art, ranging from a Virgin and Child by Bellini, through a Rembrandt self portrait, to a stunning display of Impressionism.  There are also medieval doorways, tapestries of gorgeous detail and pieces of sculpture from ancient times and far away places. 

 


The Burrell Collection, Pollok Country Park



While art is no substitute for life, there is conciliation in the patient work of artists, and we can stand to admire the scenes of life from other times represented.  Look below where a girl reaches down to release the man's sleeve from a thorn.  Care in adversity keeps the clock ticking.....

 

Catching rabbits with ferrets; tapestry in the Burrell Collection



Then, when the spirit has been nourished, the body has to be looked after, so I take tea at the Willow Tea Rooms, a less famous piece of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work than the nearby School of Art (which is currently subject to major work).  Mackintosh designed this shop on Sauchiehall Street, from facade to interior detail, for his tea-making patron Kate Cranston in 1903, and there is not a tea-bag in sight.

  



Window Dressing - The Willow Tea Rooms



And then it is night, and time to enter the bars again.  On my first visit, opening times were tightly controlled, and I guess the Calvinist ethos still prevailed, but times have changed.  Carol Ann Duffy, brought up in the Gorbals, bears witness to a different era in Before you were mine:

I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes,

relics, and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square

till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree,

with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?



I find myself next to two sisters, cut blonde hair and jewelled hands.  The clean shaven boy friends wear tight leather jackets and drink lager. 

Times change. 





Manet's Drinkers in the Burrell Collection, though they could be in the City Centre




And in the near empty State pub a fellow lone drinker reads about The Clutha in the Sunday papers, while Sky Sports carries the legend ATH 0 - 0 FCB on several screens at once.  A half pint of Highland Orkney Pale and a small Glenfiddich costs £3.40. 

Cheers Pal!




A quiet Sunday night in The State



Outside, on the Suspension Bridge, an unwanted can of Irn Bru waits for the necessary moment.

  


A can of Irn Bru sits iconically on the Suspension Bridge



And just near the Clutha bar the city mortuary is closed for the night. 

Glasgow Mortuary - note the alarm

And then, as the great Humphrey Lyttleton might have said, As the heavy boot of destiny approaches the bunny hole of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show......  

 



TESSERAE - 9 - Viterbo

Viva Viterbo!   City of the Popes!

A vast hand stretches out from the ground below the Papal Palace of Viterbo.  A bearded head gapes nearby.  Feet emerge, or are they disappearing?  Is this the risen Christ?  Or is He being buried? 

The city of Viterbo is not well known to tourists.  It straddles the Via Cassia, some eighty kilometres north of Rome, clinging to the foothills of the volcanic Monti Cimini.  Traces of Etruscans walls can be seen, though the medieval walls are almost entirely intact, pierced by seven gates, and the San Pellegrino Quarter is virtually unchanged since the thirteenth century, the best preserved such contrada in Lazio..

 

Today, Viterbo is a busy place, seat of the Università Statale degli Studi della Tuscia, with approximately 9,000 students, which grew out of the Libera Universita della Tuscia in 1979.  It is also home to the Italian Air Force, which has a school there, with an airport, founded in 1936, which was until recently going to be developed as Rome's third commercial hub.

 

Apart from that, this is a busy city, with metal and stone industries and plenty of agricultural activity.   

In the past it was great and glorious.  It became a free commune in the eleventh century and in 1164 Emperor Frederick I (aka Barbarossa) gave it the title of City.  Having a powerful position on the Via Cassia, the main road north from Rome, gave it influence, and before long it was noticed by the papacy.  In 1261, Pope Alexander IV died there, having taken refuge in the Prior's Palace, and it became the place for papal elections, with Urban IV being the first of several to make it his home.

The Cathedral, dedicated to San Lorenzo, is a plain but elegant building just next to the great Papal Palace.  It was erected in the 12th century, with Romanesque columns and a fine cosmatesque floor and the Palace, in Gothic style, was constructed a century later.  It was here in 1271, prior to the election of Pope Gregory X, that, due to long and inconsequential deliberations, the townspeople locked the cardinals in and deprived them of food, to force them to come to a decision.  Thus started the tradition of the papal conclave (which comes from the Italian, con chiave - with the keys).

The cobbled streets and squares of Viterbo bustle with life, but are stained with blood.  It was here, on March 13th, 1271, after mass in the Church of San Silvestro, that two sons of Simon de Montfort, Simon the Younger and Guy, discovered and murdered Henry Almain, or Henry of Cornwall, crowned King of the Romans.  This was an act of revenge for the death of their father, recorded by Dante Alighieri in Canto VII of his Inferno.  

 

Nowadays, though, under the watchful eyes of the local police, Viterbo is tranquil.  Old men take the shade in the courtyard of the Palazzo Communale, 

And  citizens meet or relax in the Gran Caffè Schenardi. This wonderful building started life as one of the Chigi family's banks, in the fifteenth century.  It then became a private residence until being transformed into the Albergo Reale (Royal Hotel) for travellers on the Grand Tour.  Then, in 1818, Raffaele Schenardi had the bright idea of creating a Café, right here, on the ground floor of the Hotel.  It was an idea that caught on.

With its elegant décor, and refined menus, this has been a favourite place of Popes (especially Gregory XVI) and Kings (Vittorio Emanuele III dined here), adventurers (Giuseppe Garibaldi) and Film Stars (Orson Welles was here to make his film of Othello), not to mention the grand and the great of Italy (such as Fellini, who filmed I VItelloni with Alberto Sordi in Viterbo).  It is such an iconic part of Italy, that in 1980 the Ministero dei Beni Culturali e Ambientali declared it a place of especial cultural and historic interest.  And it is still a great place for an ice cream.

And not many doors away, a famous jeweller and goldsmith's shop sold wedding rings, or so it did in 1984!

Viterbo is a fascinating place.  With the exception of Rome, Lazio, unlike Tuscany and Umbria, is not so well known for its medieval towns, nor for its spas, nor for its religious festivals.  But Viterbo has it all.  You can stroll in the shade of the thirteenth century here, or swim in sulphurous hot water here all year round, or, on September 3rd every year you can join in the celebrations of Santa Rosa, a local girl who died at the age of 18 in 1251.  She is venerated for her stoicism and for her mystical gifts, and on the eve of her Feast Day, La Macchina di Santa Rosa, a vast tower, illuminated with 3,000 tiny electric lights and 880 candles, and with a statue of her on the top, is carried by a hundred men for almost a mile round the medieval streets of the city.

And life, Italian life, goes on in its inimitable way, with its celebrations of the sausage,  

 

And its feasts of longhorn beef,

And its celebration of Football,

And, at the end of the road, its celebration of life, in death..... As paper death notices advertise the passing of a generation, colour coded as the rosettes that announce the birth of a baby.  

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

 

Winchester

Winchester - Ancient and Glorious

 

According to my Touring Club Italiano guide to London (which I recommend if only for its maps) Winchester is Una delle piu antiche e gloriose citta dell'Inghilterra..... rich in gothic monuments around the splendid cathedral.

There was an iron age settlement here and subsequently the Romans colonised it as Venta Belgarum (because the local tribe was known as the Belgae).  In about 828 Winchester became the capital of England and Alfred the Great developed the city.  He was buried in the Old Minster in 899, where Saint Swithun had been Bishop from 852 to his death in 862.

By the turn of the first millennium the priory church was the burial place of the West Saxon kings, an important cathedral and a place of pilgrimage and healing, cared for by a community of Benedictine monks.

But with the advent of the Normans great changes came about, and the old Minster was demolished and a new one, the foundation of the present cathedral, was consecrated in 1093. 

 

 

In 1100 it became the burial place of William Rufus, William the Conqueror's son, killed by an unknown bowman when hunting in the New Forest.  His sarcophagus lies in the centre of the gothic choir.

For several hundred years the monastery flourished, and in the twelfth century the magnificent Winchester Bible, decorated in gold and lapis lazuli, was created.  This, and two thousand other precious books, can be seen in the Morley Library in the South Transept. 

 

 

In 1382, Bishop William of Wykeham founded Winchester College, and he was also partly responsible for the transformation of the nave from Romanesque to perpendicular gothic. 

 

 

With its soaring columns and intricate vaulting, this is one of the glories of all architecture, and it is also, at 167 metres in length, the longest medieval cathedral in Europe.

With the dissolution of the monasteries (1536 - 39) under Henry VIII many of the monastic buildings were destroyed, though the Priory Church, as a Cathedral, was spared. 

 

In 1642, however, the Cathedral was not so fortunate, as Cromwellian troops deliberately smashed the stained glass in the West Window.  It was so damaged that no attempt to reassemble the whole was made.  Instead, using fragments that had been saved, a mosaic of the original glass was put together in 1660, which created both a wonderful light effect and a fitting memorial to earlier times.

 

At the beginning of the twentieth century the Cathedral was again threatened with disaster, this time from the natural world.  Winchester lies on peaty ground in the valley of the river Itchen, which was once used as a defensive moat for Wolvesey Castle, the old Palace of the Bishops.  The Norman crypt still floods when the water table rises and the well overflows, bathing the feet of Anthony Gormley's statue.  But in 1900 cracks large enough for owls to nest in were appearing in the walls, and chunks of masonry had begun to fall.  Architects and engineers struggled with the problem, finding that excavations rapidly filled with water.  In 1906 however project engineer Francis Fox had the innovative idea to bring in a naval diver.  And so, for six years, William Walker worked under the cathedral, in up to six metres of dark muddy water, excavating and underpinning the medieval walls, until the danger was passed.  By 1911, a team of 150 workmen had packed the foundations with some 25,000 bags of concrete, 115,000 concrete blocks, and 900,000 bricks. 

 

The Cathedral commemorates many, including Lancelot Andrewes, who was Bishop here from 1618 - 1626, though he is better known as a writer of sermons and as the general editor of the King James' Bible.  Among others are Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler, and Jane Austen who died within sight of the Cathedral on July 18th, 1817.

 

There are also memorials to the men, and women, who have through the centuries cared for the cathedral and the many pilgrims and visitors who come here (currently there are about 300,000 visitors a year). 

The building is a testament to the faith of those who created it, but also an expression of great hope.  Whatever one's private thoughts, nothing can deny the glory of the leaping vaults that both lead us to the heavens and protect us from the elements.

Outside the river Itchen flows on, under the City Bridge, said to have been first built by St Swithun.

And several of the medieval gateways still survive.  This one is Kingsgate, which has a tiny church dedicated to St Swithun above it.

And then there is the Prior's gate into the Cathedral Close, which opens by the medieval Cheyney Court, where bishops met to hear law suits relating to their properties.  

 

 

 

In the centre of the city there is the Buttercross, which has stood there since the 15th century.....

 

 

 

Then, not far from Westgate, defending the western approaches to the city, are the remains of Winchester Castle, with its 13th century Great Hall, which has housed a vast Arthurian round table for seven hundred years.

 

 

The Horse and Rider statue in the High Street, has not been here so long, having been made by Elizabeth Frink in 1975, but it nicely returns us to a bronze age, when this land was perhaps first occupied by man as he developed mastery of the beast.

 

 

And back on St Giles' Hill, I once again survey the lie of this land, with its great cathedral dominating the town. 

 

 

 

While beneath the towering walls, a solitary figure reads, and thinks, while the waters rise and fall with the seasons.  At the beginning of The Journey of the Magi T S Eliot drew inspiration from one of the Epiphany Sermons of Lancelot Andrewes.  Perhaps this is what the figure reads:

A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a Journey, and such a long journey:

The way deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.

 

 

 

 

Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us

That in thy light we may see light

The light of thy grace today

The light of glory hereafter

 

Lancelot Andrewes

1555 - 1626

Bishop of Winchester 1618 - 1626

 

Preacher, Pastor, Man of God

 

 

 

http://winchester-cathedral.org.uk/