Mark Meek's Ideas: Glasgow

For our visit this week, let's have a look at Scotland's largest city of Glasgow.

Scotland was united in the Ninth Century. Glasgow is of religious origin. Glasgow Cathedral is where St. Mungo first established the city, so let's start our visit there. The first five images of the cathedral are from Google Street View.

Notice how darkened the stone is in the first image. This is from prolonged exposure to coal smoke during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution changed the cityscape of Britain, bringing new major cities. Glasgow is Scotland's Industrial Revolution city. That is why the monarchy in Scotland revolves around Edinburgh, even though Glasgow is a much larger city. Edinburgh was there in medieval times.

England's Industrial Revolution cities are Liverpool, Manchester and, Birmingham. This is why the northern Anglican archbishop is based in York, a medieval city, even though Liverpool and Manchester are larger cities. Cardiff is the Industrial Revolution city of Wales. Carmarthen was the most important town before then.

This is also why the Industrial Revolution cities don't have great medieval cathedrals. They have smaller cathedrals or cathedrals that were built in recent times.

Another wave of cities came with the wide availability of train travel. These were the the seaside resorts such as Blackpool, Scarborough and, Southend-on-Sea.

America and Canada don't show this pattern because they came after the Industrial Revolution. But there are the seaside resorts, such as Atlantic City, Virginia Beach and, Myrtle Beach.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must click the up arrow,^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow you can then hide previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

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Here is a look at central Glasgow. Six images from Google Earth.

Medieval Glasgow is mostly gone. There was extensive urban renewal during the 1960s, and many residents moved to "new towns" outside the city. Glasgow is perhaps best-known for ship-building, but became a center of many industries after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The River Clyde is navigable to Glasgow. Two images from Google Earth.

Here is a photo that I took in Glasgow.

The following scenes of central Glasgow start from the same perspective as that photo, looking eastward on George Street. Nearby George Square is considered as the heart of Glasgow. St. Enoch Center is a former train station that was converted into a mall. The first of the following four images, from Google Earth and Street View, is of the St. Enoch Center. The second and third are of George Square. The building with the tower in the square is the Glasgow City Chambers.

Why do you pay for electricity in watts? Because Scotland's James Watt came up with the idea of horsepower. He also greatly improved the steam engine. This is the statue of him in George Square.

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The University of Glasgow began in the Fifteenth Century. It is in the West End of the city. The River Kelvin and the famous Kelvingrove Park is next to the university. If the name of Kelvin seems familiar, it is because Lord Kelvin is the one who developed the absolute temperature scale, where zero is absolute zero, which is the lowest possible temperature. To do calculations of temperature in science, it is necessary to use absolute temperature.

The following four images, from Google Earth and Street View, are of the Kelvingrove Museum and Park. This museum is leftover from Glasgow's 1901 Exhibition. That is how so many of the famous buildings of Paris originated, made for exhibitions and then used afterward. This museum is Glasgow's equivalent of the Louvre or the Met in New York.

The park around these buildings is Kelvingrove Park.

We saw the tower of Glasgow University on the posting "Travel photos Of Europe".

The University of Glasgow is one of the four original universities of Scotland, known as the"Ancient Universities". It was a focal point of what is known as the Scottish Enlightenment, which refers to the numerous scientific, intellectual and, industrial accomplishments which took place in Scotland during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. This includes the improvement of the steam engine, around which the Industrial Revolution was built, and Adam Smith's economic theories of a free-market economy. Here are some views of Glasgow University, and the nearby entertainment district, starting in the chapel of the university.

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On the east side of Glasgow is Glasgow Green. This is a very old park where the Glasgow Fair has been held, toward the end of July, since the Twelfth Century. The following scenes around Glasgow Green begin outside an old building, known as the People's Palace. The first two images of the People's Palace are from Google Street View.

The colorful building that tries to look as different as possible from Glasgow's traditional architecture was built around the beginning of the Twentieth Century, and is known as Templeton Business Centre. Remember that one difference between historically Catholic and historically Protestant countries in Europe is that Protestants will put old and new buildings right next to each other, while Catholics tend to keep them separated. To Catholics fitting in with one's surroundings is important while Protestants view too much emphasis on "fitting in" as a threat to freedom. The first image of Templeton Business Centre is from Google Street View.