Burrell

Our last day of three lovely days in South and East Ayrshire. It’s gone quickly but we’ve done so much with the time it has felt like a good visit.
Today I was looking for somewhere to go before returning home. I chose our accommodation, which has been very good, for yesterdays visits, but when I looked at the map I realised we were less than 30 miles from Glasgow. On our stays in the city in recent years the Burrell Collection has been closed for refurbishment so we’ve missed it. Situated just south of the city centre in Pollok Country Park it was easy to drive to.

I was very impressed with the building which was reopened by the King last year. The winning designer for the original building was Australian and won the project as he aligned the building with the woodland making it an integral part of the North Gallery with its glass wall alongside. He also got an award for use of the local Dumfries red sandstone which looks fabulous, especially combined with the wood and glass. He did include some flat rooves which didn’t allow for west Scottish weather so there was ingress almost from the word go so in 2016 (having opened in 1983) it was closed for 6 years for some rebuilding. It is now apparently bigger and lighter and waterproof. Of the 9,000 items in the collection more than 6,000 can be exhibited now, double what was on show previously.

I’ve tried to give some indication of its feel in the collage. In the centre is a portal from Hornby Castle in North Yorkshire, one of two. Originally bought by William Randolph Hirst ( Burrell’s great collecting rival ) for £5,000. It never left its crates and Burrell bought it for £125 after Hirst’s death. He apparently built much of his collection in this way.

There’s far too much in this very eclectic collection to describe; ceramics ( two from the Ming dynasty seen here)  textiles, stained glass, paintings and sculpture amongst them, including the biggest collection of Rodin in the UK. The Thinker is in the extra taken from the front as it was meant to be displayed above 6 m door, not from the side as it’s usually shown. The painting I’ve included is Degas’ The Red Ballet Skirts’ because I like it and there’s not too much reflection. ( Extras Cezanne and Rembrandt ). Having started looking around on our own we joined a tour which gave us the information on the building and Burrell himself as well as specific items, some we may have missed like the embroidered canopy from the bed of HenryVIII and Anne Boleyn with intertwined initials and their emblems of Honeysuckle and acorns!

Enough for one day so with an hour left on our parking ticket we took a walk through the Country Park spotting the herd of Highland Cattle with several young and a quick look at Pollok House, NT for Scotland, no time to look at its history of Glasgow today but there’s always a next time.

Sorry this is rather long and also due to time constraints I may have just sprinkled stars instead of commenting over the last few days. Back to normal now.