The Corinthian Club is a private members club in Ingram Street,

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, Scotland. It is accommodated in former bank building which, as Lanarkshire House, became the headquarters of Lanarkshire County Council. It is a Category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The original building on the site was a house known as Virginia Mansion which was commissioned by the Glasgow

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

merchant, George Buchanan of

Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is the former residence and plantation of George Washington, a Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States, and his wife, Martha. An American landmar ...

, and was completed in 1752. It was acquired by Alexander Spiers of Elderslie in 1770 and then, after passing through the hands of several other wealthy merchants, it was bought and remodelled to serve as the headquarters of the Glasgow and Ship Bank, which had previously been based in Virginia Street. The remodelling was carried out to a design by David Hamilton in the

Mannerist style Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. ...

using

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone and was completed in 1842. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto Ingram Street. In 1843, the Glasgow and Ship Bank merged with the

Union Bank of Scotland The Bank of Scotland plc (Scottish Gaelic: ''Banca na h-Alba'') is a commercial and clearing bank based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group. The bank was established by the Parliament of Scotland in 1695 to devel ...

and the building then became the headquarters of the merged bank. The building was altered internally to create a telling room to a design by James Salmon in 1853 and then re-fronted to a design by John Burnet between 1876 and 1879. The re-fronting involved the construction of a central porch with a heavy

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

and an open segmental

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

containing a

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

; it also involved a row of segmental windows on the ground floor, a

Doric order The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

pilastrade enclosing deeply recessed

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a c ...

s on the first floor and a

Corinthian order The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric or ...

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

enclosing a series of round headed windows on the second floor. The windows on the second floor contained fine carvings in the tympana and were flanked by figures sculptured by

John Mossman John G. Mossman (1817 in London – 1890) was one of a number of English sculptors who dominated the production and teaching of sculpture in Glasgow for 50 years after his arrival with his father and brothers from his native London in 1828. ...

. Internally, the principal rooms were the telling room, which featured an elaborate

coved ceiling A coved ceiling is a ceiling that has had the visual appearance of the point where the ceiling meets the walls improved by the addition of coving. It can also refer to a ceiling, like in a Mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a ...

, the bullion room, which featured a

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

ed ceiling, and the clerks' room. After the bank relocated to St Vincent Street in the 1920s, Lanarkshire County Council, which had been based at County Buildings in Wilson Street, moved into the Ingram Street building and renamed it Lanarkshire House in 1930. The former bullion store was converted into a courtroom which was used to create additional capacity for sheriff court hearings. The county council relocated to

Lanark County Buildings The Lanark County Buildings, also referred to as the South Lanarkshire Council Headquarters, is a local government facility in Hamilton, Scotland. It currently serves as the headquarters and meeting place of South Lanarkshire Council. History ...

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

in 1964, but the building continued to be used as a courthouse until the court service moved out in 1997. The building was then acquired by a developer, King City Leisure, who, in 1999, restored it and converted into a private members club known as the Corinthian Club. When the building re-opened, artistic work on display included a piece of art entitled "Glaschu", which took the form of a planted green line set in the floor of the bullion room to a design by the British artist, Anya Gallaccio.

References

External links

*{{commonscat-inline Government buildings completed in 1752 County halls in Scotland Category A listed buildings in Glasgow 1752 establishments in Scotland Mannerist architecture Listed government buildings in Scotland Court buildings in Scotland Bank of Scotland

History

See also

References

External links