Archaeology Notes

Event ID 768894

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/768894

NS56NE 83.02 56938 67447

Kibble Palace

(winter garden) [NAT]

OS (GIS) AIB, 2006.

ARCHITECT: prob. James Cousland 1863.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

The gardens' great ornament is the Kibble Palace, a dramatic giant glass mushroom, probably the work of Boucher and Cousland (Cousland is known to have made a wire model), the architects for John Kibble's Coulport House, Loch Long, for which the conservatory was originally designed in 1863-6. In 1871 Kibble offered it to Glasgow Corporation to be re-erected as a palace of art and concert hall in Queen's Park. In 1873 it was reassembled here instead, the central dome (under which there was a sunken orchestra pit) was enlarged to 146 ft (44m) diameter, and a large entrance foyer with nave, transepts and a central crossing dome was added. As first built, it was supported on twelve twisted cast-iron columns; when it was re-erected twenty-four were added which, together with leafy cast-iron brackets, support the spreading circle and gentle dome. It is still used as a conservatory, quintessentially Victorian, with lush plants and the erotic sculpture (by Hamo Thornycroft, Goscombe John, and others) that the Victorians excused as art.

E Williamson, A Riches and M Higgs 1990.

NS 5695 6745 A limited archaeological assessment was undertaken inside the Kibble Palace glass house in the Botanic Gardens. A central pond, with sunken orchestra pit or fountain, and column bases inside the main dome were investigated and recorded. These features had been filled in by 1881-2 and the interior of the glass house redesigned. (GUARD 553).

Sponsor: Glasgow City Council.

B Balin-Smith 1998.