Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 1 on 5/3/2002.

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A free spirit (Glasgow)

Tom Bruce-Gardyne takes a swift trip back in time on contemporary Glasgow's streets

For a brief historical tour round Glasgow one place to start and possibly finish would be the St Enoch Centre on Argyle St. Despite her somewhat curious name, St Enoch was the ‘Mother of All Glasgow’ who set up a religious community here with her son Mungo in the 6th century AD. While Mungo went on to establish the cathedral and become the city’s patron saint, his mother’s name lives on in this massive 1980s shopping mall – apparently the largest glassed-in area in Europe. If retail is the new religion as they say, St Enoch’s certainly attracts more pilgrims than St Mungo’s on a Sunday, and helps make Glasgow the UK’s top shopping destination after London.

This post-industrial claim to fame touted by the tourist board may well be true, but as catchphrases go, it doesn’t come close to ‘second city of the Empire’. The word ‘Empire’ is particularly poignant, for no city rode the wave of Britain’s Imperial expansion with such aplomb or crashed with such pain when it finally broke. So to get a glimpse of how this roller-coaster ride began we need to move a few blocks east to the Merchant City which once belonged to the great trader barons of the 18th century.

Today, with its cool bars and warehouse conversions, this is as close as Glasgow gets to Greenwich Village. But in spite of such developments, there is much of the past that remains unburied even if the mingled fragrance of tobacco, sugar and spice no longer wafts
down the streets as it once did. There are some real archite.....

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By Tom Bruce-Gardyne

Section : Regional Focus

Page number : 42