Pollok house

Scotland's answer to Downton Abbey.......
Pollok House is the ancestral home of the Maxwell family, located in Pollok Country Park, Glasgow, Scotland.

The house - built in 1752 and designed by William Adam - was given to the City of Glasgow in 1966 by Dame Anne Maxwell Macdonald, whose family had owned the estate for almost 700 years. It is now managed by the National Trust for Scotland and is open to the public.

Displayed within the Pollok House is a large, private collection of Spanish paintings, including works by El Greco, Francisco Goya and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. There are also paintings by William Blake, as well as glass, silverware, porcelain and antique furniture. The house also features servants' quarters downstairs (accessible free of charge), which include two shops and a restaurant.

The house also has an extensive garden, boasting a collection of over 1,000 species of rhododendrons. The gardens behind the main house contain the Pollok Park Beech (Fagus sylvatical) which is thought to be 250 years old. This tree has an unusual form with a swollen trunk (7 m girth at grade and 10 m girth at 10 m height) and a gnarled mass of branches.