Monday 4 January 2010

The Victorian Glamour of Upper Helensburgh

Helensburgh, according to a weegie friend, is so posh "people don't have cars in their driveways, they have yachts."

A wee hoose in Upper Helensburgh:


This isn't true of the whole town, but it is of the glorious, eclectic variety of housing in Upper Helensburgh. I doubt there is a greater collection of late Victorian villas and mansions in Arts & Crafts and Balmorality styles anywhere in Scotland. This area was urbanised a little over a hundred years ago, when the railway came to town and the rich merchants of Glasgow wanted a place to live out the city and by the sea.

A Villa:


There's a number of houses famous for architecture or interiors: Longcroft, Red Tower, and of course the Hill House, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The Hill House:


A walking tour round Upper Helensburgh would be illuminating, if a bit nosey. This isn't Beverley Hills, and these aren't Homes of the Stars. My finger was stayed on the shutter release button, and I was content mainly just to look.

Helensburgh street:

4 comments:

Billy said...

these aren't Homes of the Stars.

Do footballers and junkie singers not live there any more?

I've never been able to get what folk see in Macintosh. It seems like its more trendy to like him than anything else.
I'll need to tell you my art school story some time :-)

Robert Craig said...

No offence to Mark Hateley or him out of Wet Wet Wet, but they're not crowd pullers like big Arnie.

>>I'll need to tell you my art school story some time :-)

I'll tell you my Marti Pellow story ;)

Billy said...

It may be possible to combine the two stories :-)

TeuchterTex said...

Thanks for posting these piccies, we used to live in helensburgh, and Kicreggan round the corner, and we used to walk past some of these place to go into the town centre, ah memories and it snowed then too!!