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The publication of the Glasgow protocols has made it possible to give the position of every pre-reformation manse with just five exceptions. These old town-houses, connected with the prebends of the Glasgow diocese in Catholic times, of which we have knowledge, were
narrow, rubble built, single buildings without passages, their rooms extended from one outer wall to the other. Some were one/two storeys in height, others, two storeys and attics and the tallest, three storeys and attics.
They had round or square staircase towers and the upper rooms were entered by doors opening onto wooden balconies projecting over the street below.
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The towers themselves were dimly lighted by slits, port-holes, and small square boles without glass. All the manses had stone seats in their window recesses. Of ornament in the shape of stone moulding, there was very little and that of the simplest kind.
The apartments on the ground floor were, or may have been , vaulted. Nearly all of them had cells or chambers in the thickness of the walls. The outer walls of the larger manses were approx three foot thick, with the interior dividing walls of the same thickness
Little aumbries(a small recess or cupboard) cut into the walls, were placd near the fire-places, some of which were eight feet wide between the jambs.
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The original windows were very small and square headed, except in a few instances where they had pointed heads. On the bare rough interior walls, there was no evidence of wood panelling, although cloth hangings have been used in the best rooms.
These pre-reformation manses had rush-strewn floors but their inmates had one privilege, now lost to Scots, wooden balconies or stoops where they could take the air in mild weather.(please note, these houses were stone with timber cladding)
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As the majority of these Glasgow residences of the Catholic clergy were from one or two centuries older than many of the ruined casellated buildings still exist in Scotland, it may seem extraordinary in a commercial city like Glasgow, that any remained into our most recent
of times.
In the first pace, the Canons of St Mungo's Cathedral, who were predendaries or rectors of the prebends to which the Glasgow Manses were connected to the Reformation, either feued their town houses or otherwise disposed of them by regular legal conveyance
In the first pace, the Canons of St Mungo's Cathedral, who were predendaries or rectors of the prebends to which the Glasgow Manses were connected to the Reformation, either feued their town houses or otherwise disposed of them by regular legal conveyance
These clerical residenceshad been simply life-renters before that event.But whether they became preachers of the reformed kirk or remained Roman Catholic, they retained their Glasgow houses. This prevented '' waisting the howsis of divers graith ''or the removing of woodwork and
stone for building purposes by the lay inhabitants. Again, the ecclesiastical townhead, where the manses were situated, was never burned like the lower town on both sides of the Clyde, which necessitated the widening of streets and other drastic changes.
The townhead remained a quiet, semi-rural place from the reformation of 1560 til the erection of the first City Gas works in 1823, inhabited by carters, cowfeeders, weavers, in strange contrast to the ever changing, commercial lower -town
There is yet another reason for the lengthening preservation of the prebendal manses. Glasgow, unlike nearly every other town in Scotland, never suffered from hostile incursions.
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Edward I on one occasion was in the town for ten days, Cromwell's soldierswere encamped at the townhead, some of Montrose's followers plundered the citizens after the battle of Kilsyth. Claverhouse asked the Duke
(pic - Silvercraigs where Cromwell lodged) of Monmouth's permission to burn and sack Glasgow after Bothwell Brig. Ugly rumours were abroad about Prince Charlie's Highlanders would do to Glasgow on their return journey, but nothing untowards happened. It was not til the middle
of the 19th century that the wrecking of old street architecture began in wholesale fashion.
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The first really large scale redevelopment of the toonheid took place in 1832 with the removal of 1 sq mile of the oldest buildings in the City. As I mentioned earlier, the Town Gas works was the first main clearance - maps are 1778 and 1850
While a number of the manses had fallen into dis-repair after the reformation, it is pretty certain that by 1600, the best of them had been renovated and in 1638 we learn from the principle Baillie's letter that the houses of Glasgow
were in good up-keep and preservation. This creditable condition may have been due in some measure to this learned principle of the University, who seems to have antiquarian tastes.
I'm now going to quote the work of Thomas Lugton (1900) in his search for a Manse on the Rottenrow- '' On the north side of Rottenrow, a little west of Balmano Brae-head, stood the manse of Roxburgh. It was not one of those erected in Bishop Cameron's time but a parcel purchased
from the vicars of the choir by prebendary George Ker of Roxburgh in 1512.
Looking North to Rottenrow from Balmano brae or Balmano street in 1890
The site of the pre-reformation manse on the Rottenrow was at a pend called Angel Close (recorded early 1800s) and the medeival cherub-stone over the entrance is said to have been taken from the manse. If this is true, it would have been the only existing relic connected with
once populous Royal Burgh town of Roxburgh.
To return to the Rottenrow now, near the opening of Taylor street was the first Manse connected with the prebend of Luss. It was from the ruins of this house that an earthenware pot containing about 900 gold coins of dates anterior to 1540, was discovered in 1795
On the same side, at the opening of Weaver street, stood the Manse of Eddleston. (Weaver Street was opened in the late 18th century along with Taylor Street which runs parallel to it to provide access to Stirling Road. It was lined with small houses and cottages which gave
the street the appearance of a village.)
Although the Peebleshire prebend of was one of the oldest belonging to the see of St Mungo and had been given the famous prelate and Cathedral builder, Bishop William de Bondington, to Glasgow, the prebendary of Eddleston in Bishop Cameron's day had evidently not put himself
to great expense, in obeying the order of his superior, as his mansewas described by 'Senex' (Robert Reid) in ' Glasgow past and present ' as '' an old fashioned house, two storeys high '' He often seen it as a schoolboy about 1782.
