Got a little bit lost in this amazing Glasgow panorama from @GC_Archives over the Easter weekend. Here's a thread of a few things I spotted...

@LostGlasgow @OssianLore @GlasgowHeritage @PastGlasgow @YourWullie @MurphyNiallGLA https://twitter.com/GC_Archives/status/1247479251223359494

1. First up, just above the Tron Church steeple in the centre-right, you can see the castle-like turrets of something that's no longer there. The ornate Co-op Bakery that faced Glasgow Green from across the Clyde at the St Andrews suspension bridge.
http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/virtualmitchell/image.php?i=12431&r=2&t=4&x=1

Demolished in 1973, it was part of a cluster of industry that ran along the Clydeside at the Gorbals, next to the Albyn Cotton Mills (now site of Strathclyde Distillery) and Buchanan's jam and sweety factory, (now Gorbals Leisure Centre). https://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSA00168

I remember @LostGlasgow noting recently how the UCBS Bakery held a bit of a resemblance to Paris's @laconciergerie8, that sits on the banks of the Seine: https://www.facebook.com/lostglasgowofficial/posts/2115987628513082

Here's some more info and images of the UCBS bakery building from @OssianLore, in an absolutely brilliant thread that's also worth delving into: https://twitter.com/OssianLore/status/1152261872403537920

2. The line of spires right down the middle of the picture (Hutcheson’s Hospital, onion dome of the Tontine Building, & St Andrew’s In The Square) drew my eye to that massive chimney stack in the far distance, easily the tallest one in the whole shot. What was it?

...After a wee dig around on NLS maps (following the line of sight), this has to be the huge Shawfield Chemical Works. Opened in 1810 as a soap factory, it grew to become one of the biggest chemical plants in the world in the early 1900s: https://canmore.org.uk/collection/595654

Another wee aside - the Tontine Building (middle of those three spires in a row) is an interesting place in its own right. Home of the Tontine society (in turn named after Neapolitan banker Lorenzo de Tonti), it has a plaque just above the door of @guitarguitaruk...

that I only noticed myself last year: “In Buchanan’s land on this site James Watt occupied a workshop in 1763”
https://secretscotland.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/play-spot-the-watt-plaque-in-trongate/

Bit more info on the Tontine itself:
https://www.facebook.com/lostglasgowofficial/posts/the-tontine-buildingin-1781-a-tontine-society-was-established-to-raise-money-to-/765830890195436/

3. Most Glaswegians would recognise this one, and a few picked it out on the original thread. Templeton On The Green, former carpet factory with frontage inspired by the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Still there of course (now home to @Westbeer amongst others)
http://www.clydewaterfront.com/clyde-heritage/glasgow-green/templeton's-carpet-factory

4. This one was interesting - tricky to identify but helps give a date for the photo, since it was a completely empty block up until 1900ish. St Mungo’s Halls, the grand community centre which served the Gorbals from opening in 1906, until destroyed by a fire in November 1981.

Could barely find mention of this in online archives, but it crops up again and again in written personal histories of the Gorbals, as a place for community meetings, dances, concerts ( https://www.google.com/search?q=%22st+mungo%27s+halls%22&sxsrf=ALeKk027YV1muz3dWSpsX0DkaSgLONdd2A:1586728580801&source=lnms&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiol6fL8OPoAhXDiFwKHZf_Ch44ChD8BSgBegQIDBAJ&biw=681&bih=615).

Scotcities has some info on it here: http://www.scotcities.com/gorbals/hutchesontown.htm

5. Rising a little bit east of the Tolbooth Steeple, there’s a long row of tenement rooftops, crowned by a ornamental cupola on the corner nearest Glasgow Cross. Today, this isn’t much more than the car park at Molendinar Street (named after...

...the Molendinar Burn that flowed on this spot and that Glasgow was built on). At one point these blocks had some of the biggest tenements anywhere in the city. Another great @OssianLore thread here, showing this corner of Calton was flush with tenements: https://twitter.com/OssianLore/status/999343706351292416

Just as huge areas of Glasgow went through the famous “Comprehensive Redevelopment” of the 1960s (introduction of high rises in the Gorbals, Sighthill, Anderston, etc.), these tenements were the product of a similar and lesser known redevelopment effort in the 1860s.

These Gallowgate blocks, and another 90 acres of the alleys and winds of "old town” Glasgow, were transformed in the late 1800s by the City of Glasgow Improvement Act & Trust, responsible for construction of nearly all the tenements on streets radiating out from Glasgow Cross.

Yet another great thread to link to here. @YourWullie on the work of Thomas Annan, whose early photography documented the dense slum housing of 1860s Glasgow - which the Improvement Act and Trust sought to clear and replace with the tenements we see today. https://twitter.com/YourWullie/status/1247238978367041536