Queen's Cross Church, Glasgow

Last updated

Queen's Cross Church
The Mackintosh Church
Queens Cross Church07a.jpg
The church tower seen from the road junction
Queen's Cross Church, Glasgow
55°52′49″N4°16′18″W / 55.880286°N 4.271632°W / 55.880286; -4.271632 Coordinates: 55°52′49″N4°16′18″W / 55.880286°N 4.271632°W / 55.880286; -4.271632
Location Glasgow
Country Scotland
Denomination Secularised
Previous denomination Church of Scotland
Website Website
Architecture
Functional statusMuseum & Venue hall
Architect(s) Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Architectural typeChurch
Style Art Nouveau
Groundbreaking 23 June 1898
Completed10 September 1899
Specifications
Materials Red Sandstone Ashlar
Listed Building – Category A
Designated6 July 1966
Reference no. LB33764

Queen's Cross Church is a former Church of Scotland parish church in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the only church designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh to have been built; hence, it is also known as The Mackintosh Church.

Contents

History

In 1896, the Free Church of St Matthew, Glasgow, commissioned a new church and hall from the experienced Glasgow architectural practice of Honeyman and Keppie, to be located within the developing area of Springbank, near Maryhill. John Honeyman allocated the job to his young, talented, trainee architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The site was an awkward one, being on a corner plot and butted by tenements and a large warehouse. In keeping with their beliefs, the Free Church required simplicity in design. A memorial stone was laid on 23 June 1898 and the church held its first service on 10 September 1899.

Although he designed an Anglican Cathedral for Liverpool, as part of a competition, it was never built, so Queen's Cross was the only Mackintosh church to be completed. Building started shortly after Mackintosh finished his competition design for the Glasgow School of Art. It is built at Queen's Cross, at the junction of Garscube Road and Maryhill Road in Glasgow's Maryhill area. [1]

Mackintosh Design

View from south-east. Queens Cross Church07b.jpg
View from south-east.

Exterior

Unlike many churches in Glasgow, Mackintosh's church doesn't have a huge towering spire, and is rather squat and more like a Norman Castle, called 'Modern gothic' by other architects. The main south-west tower was modelled on one at Merriot in Somerset which Mackintosh visited in 1895.

Interior

The west window and balcony over the south aisle, seen from the main balcony. Queens Cross Church07g.jpg
The west window and balcony over the south aisle, seen from the main balcony.

Although the stained glass windows are not 'spectacular' compared to other churches and cathedrals, they are distinctly Mackintosh in design. The style is still used on many Mackintosh-style windows and stained glass souvenirs available today.

The roof is made up by a striking timber-lined barrel-vaulted roof, which spans the entire forty feet of the nave.

The pulpit is carved in Mackintosh designs - it is repeated five times around the curved front. It has been suggested that it represents the wings of a bird protecting young shoots - sown on fertile ground.

The design contains gothic influences, such as the magnificent stained glass blue-heart window, and pre-Reformation style elements, such as the replica of the original rood beam, which is unique in Scotland. It is even possible to find Japanese influences in the double beams and pendants inside the church. [2]

Home of Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society

Church hall. Queens Cross Church07j.jpg
Church hall.

After the church was decommissioned in the 1970s, unlike many churches which were converted to theatres, apartments or demolished and because of the popularity of Mackintosh's work, the church became home of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, which owns and operates the church as a tourist attraction.

The adjoining church hall provides tearoom facilities, and there is a display area under the balcony with many artifacts including replicas of the chairs he designed for the Willow Tearooms.

See also

Notes

  1. Glasgow’s Crosses, Glasgow History, 28 May 2016
  2. Video interview at Queen's Cross Church with Stuart Robertson Archived 5 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine , Director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society (February, 2008)

Related Research Articles

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macdonald, was influential on European design movements such as Art Nouveau and Secessionism and praised by great modernists such as Josef Hoffmann. Mackintosh was born in Glasgow and died in London. He is among most important figures of Modern Style.

Maryhill Human settlement in Scotland

Maryhill is an area of the City of Glasgow in Scotland. Maryhill is a former burgh. Maryhill stretches over 7 miles (11 km) along Maryhill Road. The Maryhill district has several sub-districts, such as Acre, Botany, Dawsholm Park, Firhill, Gairbraid, Gilshochill, Maryhill Park, North Kelvinside, Queen's Cross, St George's Cross, Cadder, Summerston, Woodside and Wyndford.

Pollokshields Human settlement in Scotland

Pollokshields is an area in the Southside of Glasgow, Scotland. Its modern boundaries are largely man-made, being formed by the M77 motorway to the west and northwest with the open land of Pollok Country Park and the Dumbreck neighbourhood beyond, by the Inverclyde Line railway and other branches which separate its territory from the largely industrial areas of Kinning Park, Kingston and Port Eglinton, and by the Glasgow South Western Line running from the east to south, bordering Govanhill, Strathbungo, Crossmyloof and Shawlands residential areas. There is also a suburban railway running through the area.

North Kelvinside Human settlement in Scotland

North Kelvinside is a residential district of the Scottish city of Glasgow.

St Clares Church, Liverpool Church in Merseyside, England

The Church of St Clare is on the corner of Arundel Avenue and York Avenue in the Sefton Park area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the Archdiocese of Liverpool and the Pastoral Area of Liverpool South. It is the only Grade I listed Roman Catholic church in the Archdiocese of Liverpool. Sharples and Pollard consider it to be "one of the most imaginative churches of its date in the country".

Greyfriars Kirk Church in Scotland

Greyfriars Kirk is a parish church of the Church of Scotland, located in the Old Town of Edinburgh, Scotland.

Ruchill Church Hall

Ruchill Church Hall, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was built as a mission for the Free Church of Scotland and completed in 1899. It is located at 15/17 Shakespeare Street, a side road off Maryhill Road, Glasgow, Scotland, close to the bridge which takes Ruchill Street across the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Ruchill area, and near a shopping centre on the main road. The adjacent church closer to the canal was constructed later, designed by a different architect.

Willow Tearooms

The Willow Tearooms are tearooms at 217 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Scotland, designed by internationally renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, which opened for business in October 1903. They quickly gained enormous popularity, and are the most famous of the many Glasgow tearooms that opened in the late 19th and early 20th century. The building was fully restored, largely to Mackintosh's original designs, between 2014 and 2018. It was re-opened as working tea rooms in July 2018 and trades under the name "Mackintosh at The Willow". This follows a trademark dispute with the former operator of The Willow Tearooms which was resolved in 2017. This name is now used at tea room premises in Buchanan Street and was also additionally used at the Watt Brothers Department Store in Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow between 2016 and its closure in 2019.

Catherine Cranston

Catherine Cranston, widely known as Kate Cranston or Miss Cranston, was a leading figure in the development of tea rooms. She is nowadays chiefly remembered as a major patron of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald, in Glasgow, Scotland. The name of Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms lives on in reminiscences of Glasgow in its heyday.

Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style)

Modern Style or Glasgow Style is a style of art that lasted from the 1880s until 1914. It is an Art Nouveau style specific to Great Britain due to its roots in the Arts and Crafts. Britain not only provided the base and intellectual background for the style upon which local styles of other countries added variation, distinction, and uniqueness, they also played an over-sized role in its dissemination and cultivation through the Liberty department store and The Studio magazine. The most important person in the field of design in general and architecture, in particular, was Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He created one of the iconic symbols of the movement, known as the Mackintosh rose or Glasgow rose. The Glasgow school was also of tremendous importance, particularly due to a group closely associated with Mackintosh, known as The Four. The Liberty store nurturing of style gave birth to two metalware lines, Cymric and Tudric.

St Peters Church, Swettenham Church in Cheshire, England

St Peter's Church is in the village of Swettenham, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Congleton. Its benefice is combined with that of Marton, Siddington, Eaton and Hulme Walfield.

Architecture of Glasgow

The city of Glasgow, Scotland is particularly noted for its 19th-century Victorian architecture, and the early-20th-century "Glasgow Style", as developed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

St Werburghs Church, Chester Church in Cheshire, England

St Werburgh's Church is in Grosvenor Park Road, Chester, Cheshire, England. It is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the diocese of Shrewsbury. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It should not be confused with the Benedictine Abbey of St Werburgh established in 1093 by Hugh d'Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester.

The Artist's Cottage project is the realisation of three previously unexecuted designs by Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In 1901, Mackintosh produced two speculative drawings, An Artist's Cottage and Studio and A Town House for an Artist. He also drew three preliminary sketches titled, Gate Lodge, Auchinbothie, Kilmalcolm, and the final drawing for the completed building. Ninety years later the architect Robert Hamilton Macintyre and his client, Peter Tovell, began work on the first of these unrealised domestic designs, The Artist's Cottage, at Farr near Inverness, Scotland.

Honeyman and Keppie was a major architectural firm based in Glasgow, created by John Honeyman and John Keppie in 1888 following the death of James Sellars in whose architectural practice Keppie had worked. Their most famous employee was Charles Rennie MacKintosh who started as a draughtsman in April 1889 and rose to partner level. The creation of the new Honeyman, Keppie and MacKintosh marked the next phase in the evolution of the practice which as Honeyman and Keppie existed from 1888 to 1901.

Church architecture in Scotland

Church architecture in Scotland incorporates all church building within the modern borders of Scotland, from the earliest Christian structures in the sixth century until the present day. The early Christian churches for which there is evidence are basic masonry-built constructions on the west coast and islands. As Christianity spread, local churches tended to remain much simpler than their English counterparts. By the eighth century more sophisticated ashlar block-built buildings began to be constructed. From the eleventh century, there were larger and more ornate Romanesque buildings, as with Dunfermline Abbey and St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney. From the twelfth century the introduction of new monastic orders led to a boom in ecclesiastical building, often using English and Continental forms. From the thirteenth century elements of the European Gothic style began to appear in Scotland, culminating in buildings such as Glasgow Cathedral and the rebuilt Melrose Abbey. Renaissance influences can be seen in a move to a low-massive style that was probably influenced by contacts with Italy and the Netherlands.

St Matthews Church, Paisley Church in Paisley, Scotland

St Matthew's Church in Paisley is notable for its Art Nouveau architecture by WD McLennan, and stained glass window by Robert Anning Bell.

John Keppie

John Keppie was a Glasgow architect and artist. From an early age he was a close friend of Edward Atkinson Hornel and would often bring in New Year with him in Kirkcudbright. Within the architectural profession, he was closest to John Archibald Campbell, and is credited with training Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Stephen Adam (1848–1910) was a 19th/20th-century Scottish influential stained glass designer. He was a pioneer of modern stained glass in Scotland. The majority of his work is in the Pre-Raphaelite style, often with a twist towards Celtic mythology, and is mainly sited in western Scotland. Although the bulk of his work is for churches he also receiving many secular commissions.

Art Nouveau temples are churches, chapels, synagogues, and mosques built in the style known as Art Nouveau in French and English languages, Jugendstil in Germany and Nordic countries, Secessionsstil in countries of former Austro-Hungary, Modernisme in Catalan or Modern in Russian. As National Romantic style is also referred to Art Nouveau, churches of that style are also listed here, as well as some temples not of pure Art Nouveau style but with distinctive Art Nouveau features.