Glasgow

A Rainy Day in Glasgow – A Tenement, Two Museums and a Film

A day by Subway and on foot, from Cowcaddens Subway to Glasgow Film Theatre.

The route

Glasgow has plenty of fine rooms to spend a wet day in, close enough to walk between.

This day goes from one to the next on foot and by Subway, Glasgow's circular underground, through Garnethill, the West End and the city centre. Two great museums are on the way: Kelvingrove, all red sandstone, where a free organ recital is given most days, and the university's own on Gilmorehill. So are a tenement flat that a Glasgow typist kept, belongings and all, for more than fifty years, and an arts cinema that first opened in 1939. No walk between them takes more than 20 minutes, and it comes to about two and a half miles on foot in all, on city streets and paths. Bring a good coat and an umbrella.

Before you go

Book Glasgow Film Theatre
Book your seat on the GFT's website once the month's programme is out, and keep the day for a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Saturday outside 23 December to 4 January, when the Hunterian is open and the organ plays at 1pm.

The day

Glasgow

A day under cover, starting at ten with a short climb up Garnethill and ending in a cinema seat on Rose Street. Lunch is in a museum in the West End, and the Subway carries you back into town late in the afternoon.

The Tenement House
An attraction
From Cowcaddens Subway it's a 10-minute walk up Buccleuch Street to the Tenement House, open from 10am. Agnes Toward, a shorthand typist, lived in this Garnethill flat from 1911 to 1965 and kept what most people would throw away: the recess beds, the coal-fired range, even a pot of jam from 1929. Give it an hour, and check the National Trust for Scotland's page before you go. From 23 December to 4 January it's shut and both museums close on several days, so keep this day for another week.
More about The Tenement House
20 min on foot
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
An attraction
Walk 20 minutes west by Woodside Place and Clairmont Gardens to Kelvingrove; in a downpour, hail a black cab. Dalí's Christ of St John of the Cross hangs on the ground floor, and Alasdair Gray's Cowcaddens Streetscape in the Fifties is in the Looking at Art gallery: the district where your day began. At 1pm, Monday to Saturday, the 1901 organ plays for half an hour in the Centre Hall; on Fridays it can be a tour booked at the desk. Then lunch in the KG Café, downstairs.
More about Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
12 min on foot
Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery
An attraction
It's a 12-minute walk up Gilmorehill to the University of Glasgow and the Hunterian Museum in its Gilbert Scott building, free and open from Tuesday to Sunday until 5pm. The Hunterian calls itself Scotland's oldest museum: it opened in 1807 with the collections Dr William Hunter left to the university. Its long main hall stands under a dark timber roof, with iron balconies along both sides. Look for the fossil Bearsden Shark, the Cleopatra coin and the Chinese Map of the World, and leave at about 4.15pm.
More about Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery
5 min by train, 6 min on foot
Glasgow Film Theatre
Walk 10 minutes down by Ashton Lane to Hillhead Subway, with its mural by Alasdair Gray, and take the Outer Circle train towards Kelvinbridge; check the times with SPT, which runs the Subway. It's a 5-minute train ride to Cowcaddens, the third stop, then 6 minutes' walk to the Glasgow Film Theatre on Rose Street. It opened in 1939 as the Cosmo, which the Film Theatre calls the UK's first purpose-built art-house cinema outside London. Choose your film on its website. Before a later showing, there's time for supper nearby.

If the rain stops

If the rain clears over lunch, step out of Kelvingrove into Kelvingrove Park. The museum stands at its foot, and the River Kelvin runs through it between the trees. Half an hour on its paths is plenty before the walk up to the Hunterian, which stays open until 5pm.

Where to eat