Glasgow City Halls

The Glasgow Police Museum is an independant museum in the Scottish city of Glasgow. The museum opened in 2002 at the Glasgow Central Police Headquarters, before it was relocated to the Merchant City area of the city in 2009. The museum is dedicated to the history of the City of Glasgow Police, the United Kingdom's first modern-style municipal police force. It also displays a collection of over 2000 international police insignia and uniforms.

The Ramshorn is a former church building located on Ingram Street in the Merchant City area of Glasgow, Scotland. It is home to SCILT, Scotland's National Centre for Languages and the Confucius Institute for Scotland's Schools (CISS), both centres within the University of Strathclyde. The building is owned by the University, which bought the church in 1983 and used it as a theatre and performance space from 1992 until 2011. The former church building sits within the Ramshorn Cemetery, one of Glasgow's oldest burial grounds.

Glasgay! Festival was a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender arts festival in Glasgow, Scotland. From 1993 to 2014 it was part of the diversity of Glasgow's cultural scene, an annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Arts Festival held usually in October/November, formerly organised by GALA Scotland Ltd.

The 'Glasgow LGBT Centre' was a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community centre located at 84 Bell Street, Glasgow G1 1LQ. It was fully wheelchair-accessible, with a chairlift. It closed in April 2009, following withdrawal of funding from Glasgow City Council. This in turn was caused by reported concerns (unfounded, the Centre Board and AGM claim, and yet to be substantiated) of mismanagement. On 17 March 1991, the first ceilidh was held to raise funds for and awareness of the planned Centre, and this has since become an annual event. Other funding was received from sources such as Strathclyde Regional Social Strategy, Strathclyde Lesbigay Forum, and the Glasgow Development Agency. The chairlift was funded by a grant from Glasgow District Council.The Centre (then called Glasgow Gay and Lesbian Centre) was opened at premises in Dixon Street (just off St Enoch Square) on November 4, 1995. The building was converted from a file store for the Procurator Fiscal. The opening was attended by politicians George Galloway, Maria Fyfe, Mike Watson, and Bill Miller: also by singer Horse and poet Edwin Morgan, who read a poem specially written to mark the opening. The centre then closed for several months to allow building to continue, and was formally opened on March 20, 1996 by Joyce Keller, Mayor of Manchester. The old Centre included a cafe/bar, four offices which were rented to LGBT-friendly businesses, and two meeting rooms called the Jackie Forster Memorial Room and the Ian Dunn Memorial Room. It was regularly used by many LGBT community groups for meetings and events. In 2008, the Centre took the controversial step of banning ScotsGay magazine from its premises on the grounds that its adult content is incompatible with the Centre's status as a family-friendly venue.In 2008, the Centre moved to new premises in Bell Street, Glasgow. In 2010, the Centre, named Castro, was locked out of its premises in Bell Street after it emerged that the centre had serious financial irregularities.

The Ramshorn Cemetery is a cemetery in Scotland and one of Glasgow's older burial grounds, located within the Merchant City district, and along with its accompanying church, is owned by the University of Strathclyde. It has had various names, both official and unofficial: North West Parish Kirkyard; St David's Kirkyard; and Ramshorn and Blackfriars. The latter name tells of its link to Blackfriars Church, linking in turn to the pre-Reformation connection to the Blackfriars Monastery in Glasgow.The burial ground was used from 1719 to 1915. In the 20th century it was remodelled along the lines of the London Improvements Act, moving most stones to the perimeter to create a usable park area. Apart from some flat stones still remaining in-situ this has largely disconnected the stones to the actual spot of interment. In 1813 the body of Janet McAlister was stolen from the graveyard, being found with 4 others in College Street Medical School.In 1824 the church of St David was built on its southern side, designed in a fine Gothic style by the English architect Thomas Rickman, with modifications by local architect James Cleland.The cemetery is effectively in three sections: the original cemetery; an enclosed central walled area where the old church stood; and two small walled sections flanking the new church. Unusually monuments adopt only two forms: wall monuments and flat slabs, other than a small row of small 18th-century stones upright but partly sunk into the ground, standing in a line to the north-east. Despite its great simplicity, the majority of graves are to rich Glasgow merchants. The austere style is a hangover from Scottish Calvinist views. John Anderson, the founder of Anderson's Institute - which would evolve into the Royal College of Science and Technology and then ultimately the University of Strathclyde, is also interred in the site.

Candleriggs is a street in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It is located in the Merchant City area of the city centre. Candleriggs was historically the area of the old city of Glasgow where candlemakers plied their trade, at a safe distance from the crowded tenements clustered around the High Street. As the city expanded in the eighteenth century it became a thriving thoroughfare itself, lined with tenements and businesses typical of Glasgow at that time. Looking down Candleriggs from its northern junction with Ingram Street, stands St David's, later known as Ramshorn Kirk. It had been without a congregation for a long while before being purchased by the University of Strathclyde in 1982. The church dates from 1826, built in Gothic Revival style by an English architect, Thomas Rickman, whose plans featured the large central tower which dominates the structure. It now serves as the home for the University of Strathclyde's Confucius Institute for Scotlands Schools and Scotland's National Centre for Languages.Candleriggs is perhaps best known as the site of the City Halls, a musical venue operated by Glasgow City Council, home to the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and a regular Glasgow performance base for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It is the older purpose-built concert hall in Glasgow.The old Candleriggs Fruit Market building at the corner of Candleriggs and Bell Street housed a market for many years. With the opening of a purpose-built facility in May 1969, on the site of the old Blochairn Steelworks, it closed and was redeveloped as a complex housing pubs and restaurants which was renamed "Merchant Square". Towards the southern end of Candleriggs was the Goldbergs department store, which closed in 1991. It was then taken over by Vera Weisfeld (of What Every Woman Wants fame) and reopened in 1994 as Weisfelds - a budget clothing store. Weisfeld's closed in 1999. Granny Black's was a well known pub on Candleriggs housed in an old tenement building which collapsed due to a burst water main in the basement one night in February 2002. The building was empty at the time of the incident and there were no reported injuries. The site subsequently fell into dereliction and the land was acquired by the luxury retailer Selfridges of London, although their plans to build a department store there were later dropped. In late 2013, Selfridges began demolition of the former Goldbergs buildings and works began in early 2014 to landscape the area. Following Selfridges selling land to a property developer, approval was granted in May 2020 for mixed-use development of the site by Drum Property. The first phase of the development will include a 500-room hotel and 300 apartments and is currently under construction.

Ingram Street is a major thoroughfare in the city of Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland. The street runs east from Queen Street through the Merchant City until it meets High Street.

Trongate is one of the oldest streets in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Trongate begins at Glasgow Cross, where the steeple of the old Glasgow Tolbooth is situated, being the original centre of medieval Glasgow, and goes westward changing its name to Argyle Street at Glassford Street.

Hutchesons' Hall is an early nineteenth-century building in Ingram Street, in the centre of Glasgow, Scotland. It is owned and maintained by the Rusk Company and National Trust for Scotland, and is a category A listed building.The current building was constructed, as Hutchesons' Hospital, between 1802 and 1805 to a design by the Scottish architect David Hamilton. This building was to replace an earlier hospital of 1641 in the city's Trongate, which needed to be removed to created Hutcheson Street. Hamilton's design incorporates in its frontage statues (carved in 1649 by James Colquhoun) from this earlier hospital.Hutcheson's Hospital was built with monies left in the will of brothers George Hutcheson (c. 1580-1639) and Thomas Hutcheson (1589-1641) for the purposes of building a hospital for the elderly and a school for poor boys. The school is still operating today, although fee-paying, as Hutchesons' Grammar School. In 1876, the architect John Baird was commissioned to refurbish the hall. This work heightened the structure and added a feature staircase. The building fell into disrepair and had been empty since 2008. In June 2014, having undergone a £1.4M refurbishment, it was restored by James Rusk of The Rusk Company and opened as a three flooring dining venue - Hutchesons steak and seafood house.

The Merchant City Festival is a major cultural festival taking place in Glasgow's Merchant City area. Attracting more than 55,000 people, the four-day Festival presents the cream of Scotland’s theatre, music, visual arts, comedy, dance, film, fashion and food scene. The Festival presents opera singers in the courtyards and squares performing alongside cutting-edge live art, street theatre, iconoclastic comedy and music from every genre in the bars and on the street. It also has a quirky short film programme that places films in estate agents, hairdressers and tattoo parlours. Many of the events are free of charge. The Merchant City Festival has attracted an extensive range of supporters and contributors from festival directors to national organisations such as Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. A ‘festival of festivals’, it has worked with established festivals such as New Moves International, the Glasgow International Comedy Festival, Glasgow International Jazz Festival, Big in Falkirk and Glasgay! An international context is provided by the Directors’ Choice programme that provides a remarkable range of street artists selected from festival directors throughout Europe. The 2008 Merchant City Festival was held in September. The Merchant City Festival is produced by UZ Events in partnership with Glasgow City Marketing Bureau. Celtic Music Radio broadcast live from the 2008 festival on 1530kHz and on the internet, from an Outside Broadcast location in Merchant Square.

The Tron Theatre is located in the corner of Trongate and Chisholm Street. This location was formerly the Tron Kirk, which had started as the Collegiate Church of Our Lady and St. Anne in the Trongate area of Glasgow, Scotland. The Tron Steeple still stands adjacent to the theatre. The Tron Theatre building is home to the Tron Theatre Company, and is a producing house for contemporary theatrical work, also functioning as a receiving house for a visiting program of theatre, comedy, and music from Scotland, the UK, and abroad. Its Education and Outreach department offers a range of activities, from drama workshops for children and young people, to creative writing for adults and professional development opportunities for theatre students and practitioners.

The Collegiate Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Anne, Glasgow, was founded in the middle of the sixteenth century by James Houstoun, Subdean of Glasgow and Rector of the University of Glasgow from 1534 to 1541. The church was located on the south side of Trongate. Two copies of its Latin constitution, dating from 1549, have survived in the city archives. These provide detailed information about the structure of the college and its funding. James Houstoun's original provision was for a Provost, eight canons or prebends, and three choristers, but later benefactions extended this. The prebends were supported by property scattered across the city, and in Dalry, Maybole and Rutherglen. The third prebend was the organist, who was also in charge of the Song School for the instruction of the youth in plainsong and descant, which stood on the west side of the church. When their voices broke, choristers would continue their education at the Grammar School. The canons wore fur-trimmed red hoods, and surplices which were to be washed once a year. The daily pattern of services is carefully laid out. St Anne's Day, 26 July, was marked with much pomp and ringing of bells, after which money for bread and ale was distributed to the canons, to thirty paupers, eight scholars, and the residents of the Hospital of St Nicholas by the cathedral. The lepers of St Ninian's Hospital received their share at a safe distance in the churchyard. At the Reformation in Scotland in 1560, this all came to an end. In 1570, the church was described as ruinous, when it passed into the hands of a city burgess, James Fleming. It later returned to use as a parish church of the Church of Scotland. In the 17th century a gothic spire was built. The church burnt down in 1793, and a new church was built to a classical design but retaining the spire. The kirk was designed by architect James Adam who was the joint architect of the very new Royal Infirmary, and a few years later the architect of the city's Assembly Rooms in Ingram Street. One of its most celebrated ministers was the evangelical and enterprising Rev Dr Thomas Chalmers. Much later, the Tron congregation merged with St George's on Buchanan Street in 1940 to form St George's Tron Church; after a period of disuse, the building – the Tron Kirk or Laigh Kirk – was converted into the Tron Theatre in the early 1980s.