House For An Art Lover, 2

I was somewhat less into Art Appreciation here than was Vicki, and somehow the camera's eye wandered...

The House for an Art Lover is in a city park and just behind the House is a set of
artificial ski slopes, something new to me

Gents' Room for an Art Lover

Cafe/Restaurant for an Art Lover

Gift Shoppe for an Art Lover...OK, I'll spare you the others

Here I am in the Concentration Booth for an
Art Lover, being punished--made to listen to
the audio-guide--for inattention and disrespect

Here we are in the Museum, etc., looking at a photograph of Mackintosh and his
group (groupies?), modestly calling themselves the "Immortals"; the Scots are truly
wild and crazy persons

What is the French word for seven? Oh yes, "Menage a Sept"; the one looking away
is his eventual wife, Margaret McDonald, also his muse, collaborator, and, in his
words (paraphrasing), the one with the ideas

House For An Art Lover, 1

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Remember that name. It definitely will be on the quiz after our Glasgow posts.

Students of this blog know we are fans of Art Nuvo and Art Deco. Mackintosh is definitely in that realm, especially if you factor in Scottish severity, a little Bauhaus, a little neo-Nippon. There are elements of all in his work, although he preceded all but Art Nouveau. He is revered in Glasgow about the same as Gaudi in Barcelona.

The first of his works we visited was the "House for an Art Lover." It was built only recently. Mackintosh had submitted plans for it to a German architectural periodical in the early 20th century, and publication of the plans attracted widespread attention. But the house was never built. Only in recent years did Glasgow city fathers and architectural historians decide to build the house, in part a Mackintosh museum and shrine, in part a conference/meeting center. (Also available for weddings, wakes, bar mitzvahs, Christmas parties, etc.) Basically what you have here, apart from the external shots, are an entry hall, a dining room, a music room, and a withdrawing room/game room (perhaps). They are all reasonably obvious, so I'll spare the narration.

Glennifer Braes Country Park

On our previous visit to Glasgow we found a wonderful "campsite" right in town, in the Burrell Collection's carpark in Pollok Park. Quiet. Secluded. Convenient. Bus service within a few hundred feet. Almost free. We arrived in the afternoon, deposited a coin in the pay-and-display, leveled the camper, and settled down for an enjoyable evening prior to touring some new sites in Glaswegia. We were beginning to think about dinner when the Park Ranger drove up, surmised what we were up to, and informed us, very politely, that, despite the absence of signage, over-night parking was not allowed. The police would be around to visit after dark, he said. Fortunately, Vicki had identified a back-up location, in the suburb of Paisley, west of Glasgow, high on a ridge overlooking the Clyde Valley. We liked the Glennifer Braes Country Park well enough that we spent three nights there. We drove to the Burrell and House for an Art Lover and used the Silverburn Shopping Center P&R for getting to the downtown. Oh yes, our stay in Glasgow was notable for another reason: we got the Grey Wanderer washed and waxed; for L7! It is now the White Wanderer.

Thus

Nice views

Hiking trails

Good signage

Wildlife

Nice views, too

Ditto

On To Scotland

After the castle, we drove a few miles out of Carlisle to a lay by we had identified as a possible night halt--and found ourselves just outside Gretna, Scotland. The next day, we drove on toward Glasgow, with two unsuccessful detours, one the World Heritage Site at New Lanark, the other a wall of neolithic inscriptions near Kilmarnock. We could find no adequate parking at New Lanark and so took a few pix and drove on. I found quite a few cliffs and walls on the River Ayr, right where the GPS said, but no cup nor ring marks. We drove on again. The third strike was called in Glasgow, but I'll cover that in the next post.

A few scenes from the early 19th century mill town/social
experiment of New Lanark

The brain-child of industrialist/socialist Robert Owen
(also of New Harmony, Indiana, fame)

You can check Owen and New Lanark out at the website:
http://www.newlanark.org/index2.shtml; tell them they need
to provide a coach park with parking for RVs

The only plausible wall I found for the neolithic inscriptions
was this; no cups, no rings, but signs of later habitation...

But I did have a nice hike along the River Ayr; even picked a
few wild raspberries

Carlisle Castle

Carlisle Castle is another old one, with much history, rather more of it about captives than warfare. We embedded ourselves in a turbuss tour, conducted by a member of the English Heritage staff at the castle.

Entrance, curtain, and tower of Carlisle Castle

One of the better tours we have been on...this
guy covered Carlisle from the earlier
Plantagenets to Bonnie Prince Charlie...about
800 years of English/Scottish history, in less
than an hour

The Keep

In the Keep, two small windowless rooms housed 60
prisoners, awaiting trial and execution, from the Battle of
Culloden (that's where the English put an end to the Jacobite
cause and the Pretender)

The only source of water was moisture
seeping through these two stones; you can
see where the prisoners licked them smooth

The executions were unusually brutal for the times, more on
the order of the Wars of Religion; in any case, tradition has
it that this is the source of "The Bonnie Banks of Loch
Lomond," that is, the prisoner taking the low road, the grave,
and his beloved the high road, life, back to Scotland; so they
say

Foundation remains of the tower where Mary Queen of
Scots was held for a time

Thank you note from Elizabeth Regina to the
castle master for keeping the Scottish (by
then, ex-) Queen safe and sound

Top floor of the Keep, very old graffiti by
castle guards keeping their watches

They don't build them like that anymore
department: downspout dated 1717...

Carlisle Cathedral

After Chatsworth we drove on a couple more hours, skirting the Peaks District, over-nighting at a lay by at Chunal Hill. From there we drove on the next morning, now skirting the Lake District--too crowded this time of year, even the northern bit that we saw in 2009--and headed for Carlisle, the last of our north-bound English destinations. The cathedral there is attractive, despite being more chopped-up than most. One enters the south transept, looks admiringly at the choir, ambulates around the ambulatory, takes in the elevation, the great east window, the organ...wait a second, aren't these things a bit askew? And then, back at the crossing...wait a second, where is the nave?

Squared-off east facade, nice window

South-side chancel

Nicely-carved choir

Elevation, two aisles, small gallery, small clerestory, painted
barrel-vault wooden roof

Nice to look at

East window...altar a little off center?

Organ..way off center? And not just the organ, the arches too...

Artsy shot of lancet windows

Back in the crossing, one of the older bits, with Romanesque arches and the
zig-zag stone work that makes you think the builders maybe had been to the
Holy Land or at least to Moorish country

Ditto; note the huge piers

The usual bronze model helps: it started out as an abbey church, 11th century,
then Carlisle became a cathedral city, 12th century, and it became a cathedral,
and then the Reformation came along, and later the Dissolution, and then
Cromwell and the Civil War...oddly, the Parliamentarians amputated the nave--
the peoples' part of the church--and left the priests' part intact; oh well

Fortunately they left the feline gargoyles intact

South-west view, showing the sawed-off nave; the red stone throughout--and
throughout Carlisle--is strikingly beautiful