19 July 2009 - Holmwood House

Today we headed over to another National Trust property - Holmwood House - which was in Glasgow. This is a house that was designed by Alexander "Greek" Thomson, became a school, and is now undergoing restoration. Strange middle name for the architect eh? The "Greek" comes from his love of Greek architecture which can be seen throughout the house. Funny thing was the architect had never been to Greece in his life so his perception of all things Greek was....... well essentially in his imagination!

The view up from the stairs. The panels in the windows have tiny little star shapes carved out of them and when the sun shines through the window the images of stars can be seen all over the walls of the stairway.



Interesting dresser. In fact when you examine it closely it's pretty ugly really eh? Not one of Mr Thomson's better choices of furniture.

A door. Many of the doors in the house had painted designs on the woodwork. He'd obviously gone to considerable effort adorning panels and doors with artwork. Something you won't see nowadays.



A panel. Apparently pictures were once hung here when the house was first built, but these have been "lost".



Another view of the cupola.



Nice fireplace.



The following circular area of the house had me laughing away. The audio guide goes into great details about how this area of the house would have been where all the ladies of the house came to do their sewing/needlework and gossip away about handbags, make up and shoes!! They've even taken the trouble to record the chatting of a group of ladies..... just so that you can imagine yourself back in those days. However for today, in the year 2009, Teddy is looking out the window.



You will also notice a deliberate architecture feature of the bay window. The vertical ornate pillars outside would traditionally form part of the main building and accommodate the windows. But not for Mr Thomson. He was so proud of these pillars he wanted nothing to detract from them. Hence he built them deliberately freestanding to the windows. Very effective too.

And this is the view Teddy gets from the window.



This room, compared to the large formal lounge upstairs, was somewhat drab. Nice ceiling but the walls needed something. Probably spent a fortune in the rest of the house and ran out of money.

Ceiling detail - you can see how they're restoring it slowly by peeling off the old layers of paint.



Ceiling light detail.



Another fireplace.



Zeus in a Greek cartoon that is part of a series that have been painted on the walls. Cartoon??? so our Mr Thomson was a bit of a comedian?



Floor detail in the cafe. And we are told the company still make and sell these exact tiles.



Onions in the garden.



A cloche. (I might make one of these, seems easy enough, la la la). He's joking but on the day when I told him the glass cases were called cloches he poo pooed the idea saying I was just making it up. But see? What are they called? Cloches!



Full front view of the house. As you can see it's not overly grand but it's style of architecture does make you wonder whether Mr Thomson was having a laugh designing this one.



View of the house and garden.