Architecture Notes

Event ID 696657

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Architecture Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/696657

Glasgow, Bishop's Castle

1730 - 1736

Glasgow Castle (Archbishop's Palace). Letters and papers relating to its demolition (8 items), including:

1. Draft letter asking lord provost of Glasgow to investigate alleged removal of ironwork, stone and timber by Robert Thomson, to whom barons had committed oversight of building, and to consider possible uses for it, Feb. 1730.

2. Letter from Andrew Ramsay, lord provost, reporting that 'there is nothing remaining of the whole fabrick but a ruinous heap of stones and a great part rubbish', 10 Feb. 1735.

3. Letter from Charles Mitchell, office of excise, Glasgow, to Robert Molleson, collector of excise (Ayr), overseer of castle, describing arrest of persons found demolishing stair of chapel, 27 March 1735/6.

6. Letter from Mitchell to Molleson referring to collapse of part of building and murder in 'the inner voalt', 15 Oct. 1736.

7. Letter from Molleson to deputy remembrancer, stating that he had directed Mitchell to dispose of timber, slates etc but forbidden him to take down the turret, 18 Oct. 1736.

8. Memorial for Robert Finlay, Old Tannery, Glasgow, offering to pull down 'a frightfull wall which hangs over the main street' and the turret, in return for lease of grounds and gardens, where he may set up 'some kind of manufacture', (1736).

EXTERNAL REFERENCE:

Scottish Record Office

State of the Bishop's House.

'...the Bishop's house. which is called the Castle; rumished to the very foundations; that is, nothing standing but a few old walls, and now when the timber and iron work is gone, they are selling the very stones'.

Letter from Andrew Gardner to Mungo Graham of Gorthie.

1744 GD 220/1593/20

Repair of the Bishop's Palace

Letter from Postmaster Thomson to Mungo Graham of Gorthie.

1727 GD 220/5/1065

Report on the Bishop's Palace

William Adam's letter which apparently accompanied a report on the palace for Sir John Clerk as a Baron of the Exchequer.

1729 GD 18/4732/1

EXTERNAL REFERENCE:

Mitchell Library

Glasgow in Former Times Vol 1:

p8 Lithograph as ruins stood in 1780

P17 Lithograph of palace and St Nicholas Chapel as they stood c.1780

Wm Graham album Vol 1

p1 Print of old engraving of Darnley's cottage and Glasgow Cathedral

Print of old engraving (c.1750) old Trades House, St Nicholas Chapel.

The Mitchell Library.

'Glasgow in Former Times' Vol. I.

Glasgow, Old Trades House.

Possibly part of Bishop's Castle.

National Library of Scotland - Nattes Drawings

1 Drawing, Aug 14 1799, Vol I no 64. of ruins

1 Drawing, Aug 14 1799, Vol I no 65. of ruins