#Glasgow - North Rotunda

View from the new(ish) Sky Bar at the Radisson Red Hotel. Built between 1890 and 1896 by Glasgow Tunnel Company, the Rotundas covered 24-metre (79 ft) deep shafts[4] to tunnels which enabled vehicular and pedestrian access to the other side of the River Clyde. Pedestrians, horses and carts - and later motor vehicles - would be hauled up by hydraulic lifts provided by Otis Elevator Company of New York. During the Second World War, the tunnels were temporarily closed because all the metal from the lifts was removed to contribute to the war effort. The tunnels were an expensive venture to run and were passed to the council to run as a service in 1926.
The increased costs of running the tunnels which were prone to damp and the increase of motor cars on the roads lead to the closure of the pedestrian tunnel in 1980, and the vehicular tunnels being filled in 1986. Though the pedestrian tunnel still exists, it is closed to the public.
Originally, three-storey red and white brick towers stood alongside the Rotundas, containing the hydraulic accumulators that powered the lifts, but these have been demolished.