Willow Tea Rooms

We have had a wonderful day in Glasgow - including the weather!

Started at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. Lots of interest including a Rennie Mackintosh exhibition with original furnishings from the Willow Tea Rooms and other items of furniture and artefacts. Beautiful panels by Margaret Macdonald too.

We then walked down Sauchiehall Street, which means alley of the willows, to the Glasgow School of Art and had a guided tour of the Mackintosh Building. This was fantastic but we were not allowed to take any internal photographs.

Our final Mackintosh stop was the Willow Tea Rooms, further on Sauchiehall Stree, for Afternoon tea
The tea rooms originally had four floors. The bottom one is now a shop, we were on the second floor with a mezzanine down to the floor below. This picture shows the 3rd floor room originally just for ladies who had to pay 1 penny more for it's exclusivity! The fourth floor was a snooker and smoking room for the gentlemen.

There were 4 tea rooms originally commisioned by Miss Cranston - a lady tea baron - and Mackintosh designed and furnished them all. This and one other in Buchanan Street (where we had a little peep and which still has a Chinese room) are the only ones remaining.