Glasgow, Medieval and Maritime

This unique museum explores the importance of religion in people's lives across the world and across time with Buddha, Ganesha, Shiva, amongst other spiritual leaders, saints, and historic figures treated equally. The themes of life, death and the afterlife are explored through works of art. Admission is free.

The museum promotes understanding and respect between people of different faiths. It has mesmerizing sculptures, pictures and displays on religious practices and festivals such as the Mexican Day of the Dead, as well as interactive exhibits on the effects of religion on Glasgow life. It is a one off chance to explore religion and art, the past and the present and learn how they interact, which in itself is quite a unique experience.

The building, which stands on the site of the medieval Bishop's Castle, was opened in April 1993 is intriguing both inside as out. The museum offers unrivalled views over both Glasgow Cathedral and the Necropolis, the dramatic 19th-century graveyard on the hill behind. In addition it is situated near Provand's Lordship, the oldest house in the city.

The main gallery is a double height room illuminated with a wealth of colours created by stained glass windows depicting Christian saints, include a depiction of St. Mungo himself, and prophets. Natural and artificial light is subtly controlled to unsure perfect illumination on the watercolour painting and textile floor covering.

There are three floors and four exhibitions areas: the Gallery of Religious Art, the Gallery of Religious Life, the Scottish Gallery and a temporary exhibition space. In the Gallery of Religious is the awesome figure of the Hindu god Shiva, Lord of the Dance. The Gallery of Religious Life explores the world's six main religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. In this gallery people of all religions talk about their faith, and you meet the Mexican Day of the Dead skeleton, celebrating the victory of life over death.

The Scottish Gallery presents the fascinating story of how religion has shaped the culture and beliefs of people in the West of Scotland from earliest times to the present. An outstanding collection of artefacts, including Celtic crosses and statuettes of Hindu gods, reflects the many religious groups that have settled throughout the centuries in Glasgow and the west of Scotland. This rich history is depicted in the stunning Sharing of Faiths Banner, which celebrates the city's many different faiths.

Beside the museum you can contemplate in Britain’s first permanent Zen garden, a masterpiece of simplicity, symbolising the harmony between people and nature. Zen is a Buddhist method of contemplation and is part of the tradition of Dyana (Chinese Ch’an, Japanese Zen), which depends on the simple life and a rejection of worldly pleasures and a return to nature. The stones, gravel and grass represent - in miniature - mountains, water and land and are meant to inspire contemplation. The layout of the garden derives from the unbroken tradition studied by Mr Tanaka in Kyoto, Japan.

Provand's Lordship, opposite Glasgow Cathedral, is a rare example of 15th-century Scottish domestic architecture. Its survival has been due to the efforts of the Provand’s Lordship Society. Because of their work and later others you can step, free, into Glasgow's past in the only house to survive from the medieval city. Even better you can take photographs - something that disallowed in many Scottish historic buildings nowadays.

Built in 1471, it as a sandstone tenement with three stories each containing three separate rooms with fireplaces. Access to the first and second floors was by a central wooden stair. Wooden balconies provided access to the upper chambers but internal stairs have replaced these.

The house served as the Preceptor's House of the Hospital of St Nicholas that was built by Andrew Muirhead, Bishop of Glasgow. His coat of arms appears on the eastern side of the south gable. Later the ‘Lord of the Prebend of Barlanark’ occupied the house and through time it became known as ‘Provand’s Lordship’.

Eventually the house fell into decline and served in turn as a sweets shop, a soft drink factory, the home of the city hangman in the 18th century, and a junk shop. Scheduled for demolition by the end of the 19th century, the Provand's Lordship Society saved it for posterity and turned into a museum. The Glasgow District Council took over its care in 1978. A local builder then renovated the building - charging one penny for his work. Extensively restored, it now gives a flavour of life in medieval Glasgow with period displays and a spooky re-creation of the old hangman's room.

The interior doorways are low and narrow, and most people have to duck their head to enter the various rooms, which even with electric lighting seem gloomy. These contain furniture dating from the 16th to 18th centuries most of which were collected by Sir William Burrell wealthy philanthropists, best known for the Burrell Collection in Pollok Country Park.

The ground floor has displays about the history of the house. On the first floor is a reconstruction of the furnished chamber of Cuthbert Simson who lived here as a chaplain at the beginning of the 16th century. The upper chambers contain pictures of some of Scotland's famous historic figures - Bonnie Prince Charlie, Lord Darnley, husband to Mary Queen of Scots, and her son James VI (who became James I of England). Various paintings depicting Glasgow’s past are also on display. In one room hangs a wooden Coat of Arms from the 16th century that belonged to Henry Hastings, third Earl of Huntingdon (1536-95).

Behind the house is the St Nicholas garden, built in 1997. It is a medical herb garden, containing medicinal plants in use in the fifteenth century, designed to reflect the original purpose of the house.

This corner of old Glasgow containing the Cathedral, St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art and the Provand’s Lordship house is well worth a visit.

Outraged at the orgy of vandalism, in the period from 1560 that destroyed so many Scottish churches and monasteries, the ordinary people of Glasgow said a distinct ‘No’ to the destruction of their cathedral during the Reformation. They took up arms to protect Glasgow Cathedral. If it had been destroyed, this would have lost over 1,400 years of history and beauty.

If only others had stood firm like the Glasgow citizens, for so much of beauty was lost during the Reformation. Scotland alone is littered with the remains of monasteries ruined during this period. Even from the scant remains their former beauty is evident. What for religion if this is what it can achieve?

Glasgow Cathedral has history built into its layers. The Blacader Aisle in the Lower Church is the site of the original church founded in AD590 by St Kentigern, bishop of Strathclyde – better known as St Mungo. He travelled widely and spread his message down the west coast of Britain as far as North Wales. Appropriately his tomb lies in the centre of the site of his simple wooden church.

The first stone church on the site opened in the presence of King David I of Scotland in 1136. It occupied the area covered by the present nave. Its walls below windows level date back to the early 1200s. Later building on the wall and adding the upper and lower choirs to the east end of the nave largely completed the present cathedral.

A choir screen splits the upper parts of the church into the nave and the choir. The sloping site on which the church sits allowed the construction an unusual feature - a lower church occupying the area under the choir. This is a beautifully vaulted space. At its heart lies the tomb of St Mungo while at its east end are a series of chapels. These include the Chapel of St John the Evangelist still containing the well used by St Mungo in the late 500s for his water supply.

Eager pilgrims queued to get into these chapels after 1451, when the Pope declared that a pilgrimage to Glasgow Cathedral would carry the same merit as one to Rome. Perhaps he didn’t appreciate hordes of grimy tartan-clad pilgrims appearing in his holy city?

One of the joys of Glasgow Cathedral is the way it is continually changing and adapting. There are many examples of this, but the most striking is the beautiful Millennium Window placed in the north wall of the nave in 1999. Three schools, Glasgow Academy, Hutcheson's Academy and the High School of Glasgow, holding annual services in the Cathedral, raised the funds to pay for it.

The window is true to the spirit of others in the Cathedral produced as far back as the 1400s as traditional techniques formed the production method. However the imagery and overall appearance are far from traditional being a distinctive symphony of shades of blue.

The Tall Ship Glenlee is one of Glasgow’s newest attractions. During the July River Festival, my wife and I visited this captivating beautiful ship. She is one of only five Clydebuilt sailing ships now afloat in the world. A barque she has two masts rigged with the traditional square sails and the stern mast with a fore-and-aft rig to allow her to point closer to the wind. She now serves as a The Tall Ship museum at Yorkhill Quay, Glasgow.

The ship was constructed using Scottish coal and iron ore. Imagine the deafening noise as the Black Gang of the Port Glasgow Shipyard in 1896 hammered a thousand rivets and shaped the beams, plates and frames to fashion the ship’s hull. With a length 245 feet, beam of 37.5 feet and depth of 22.5 feet she is astonishingly large for a sailing vessel. Built for a solely functional purpose these ships are among the most beautiful of man’s creations. More than 200 of these vessels were built in the 1980s and 1990s, during which time Clydeside yards established an enviable reputation world wide for constructing them.

These sailing ships prospered as the bulk carriers of their day for coal, steel, lumber, hides and guano. A big increase in insurance rates for sailing ships in 1897 and the opening up of the Panama Canal in 1914, making the dominance of sailing ships in the trip around Cape Horn an irrelevance, hastened their end.

Today they have a fascination because of their beauty but also because they represent an age which is lost. These majestic vessels were outstanding pieces of engineering. Their immensely powerful hulls withstood all but the fiercest of elements. With her full sails harvesting the ocean breezes, she would have been majestic.

Just imagine the excitement and danger of rounding Cape Horn in the teeth of a merciless gale or running before gales of the Roaring Forties in the Great Southern Ocean or sleeping under canvas in the idyllic calm of horse latitudes of the tropics. The courage of the sailors working hundreds of feet above a foaming ocean or struggled waist-deep in the maelstrom of the main deck awash with angry ocean must have been immense.

I was surprised and my wife delighted that the first immense deck had been turned into a market with many stalls set out. Behind the stalls and many other places were posters outlining details about the ship and the time period into which she fitted. Being a bulk carrier she was devoid of portholes, so it must have been eerie working below decks. At some time a generator had been fitted to alleviate the problem.

Working down through the decks, we came finally to the bilges with stone ballast still stacked neatly. I found a marker indicating just how far we were beneath surface level – truly down the Clyde!

Admission: Adult - £4.95, Concession - £3.75, Free child entry with every adult.

The impressive wooden ship The Matthew, built and registered in Bristol, visited the July Glasgow River Festival and was an immediate draw. She is a full-scale replica of the 15th-century trading vessel in which John Cabot sailed across the Atlantic to discover Newfoundland in 1497 - the event that cemented Bristol's association with seafaring.

With a length overall of 23.7m, a beam overall of 6.3m and a displacement of 85 tonnes, she is a cockleshell compared with modern ships. However, with a sail area of 2,360, she could harvest the ocean breezes and bowl along merrily with her crew of 19. These compact efficient sailing caravels were a common sight around medieval Europe.

Although the lack of plans or pictures of the original Matthew created difficulties, it was possible to remake the ship from a few clues and knowledge of the caravels of the time. The attention to period detail on the boat is impressive and standing on her now gives a sense of the Mathew’s past.

Over 500 years ago, John Cabot and his crew set sail for Asia aboard the original Matthew hoping to trade goods and commodities with the people who lived there. Explorers of the day knew the world was round, but thought it was much smaller in diameter and didn’t realise the American continent was in the way. John Cabot therefore arrived on the coast of Newfoundland and had more claim to have discovered America than Christopher Columbus who only got as far as the Caribbean.

In 1997, the replica Matthew followed the same course as John Cabot in 1497. It carried the same number of crew as the original and also took 54 days to complete the crossing to Newfoundland. Continuing her travels, she toured Newfoundland, the Nova Scotia coast, the eastern Seaboard of the USA, Boston and the St Lawrence and wintered in Toronto. Her return journey took 18 days, 3 more than Cabot’s.

Like Christopher Columbus, Cabot was an Italian. He had struck up a good rapport with King Henry VII but apart from these facts we know little for certain about him, but he has become one of the most famous explorers of all time. Statues of him now stand all round the world: streets and buildings carry his name and monuments have stand in his honour. However, his last resting place is unknown, for he sailed away on another mission with a small fleet of ships and disappeared. Possibly he settled somewhere and lived happily ever after – he just didn’t have a way of telling people.

His voyage across the Atlantic had a tremendous impact on future generations, the progress of world trade, and the way the North American continent developed. The Matthew Project therefore celebrates a great voyage from the past, which helped to shape our future. Usually this vessel is one of the premier attractions in Bristol’s harbour, being moored alongside Brunel’s SS Great Britain, so we were fortunate to see it on a visit to Glasgow.