Our Essential Glasgow tour will take us past splendid Victorian buildings, the world’s oldest surviving music hall, and a dramatic steeple that is the sole surviving part of Glasgow’s Tolbooth.
Essential Glasgow
Tour Creator
Robert is uniquely qualified to create Edinburgh and Scotland tours having been a tour guide in Edinburgh for over two decades. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Edinburgh and Scotland’s…Read More Bio »
Glasgow
GPS-directed
Remote Tour Included
2+hrs
2.5km
Avoid the Crowds
Allows you to explore without having to be shoulder-to-shoulder in a large tour group
Created by an exceptional tour guide
Written by Scotland tour guide with over two decades of experience
GPS Directions
Easy-to-follow GPS directions to get you from one point to the next on your tour
Highlights include:
The Lighthouse Building, Britannia Panopticon, and the Glasgow Cathedral
Remote Tour Included
As with all our tours, a remote tour is included that can be enjoyed from home
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Itinerary
Essential Glasgow
- Lighthouse Building - Opened in 1999, the year Glasgow became Britain’s City of Architecture and Design and grandly named Scotland's Centre for Design and Architecture. It was a conversion, from the offices of the Glasgow Herald newspaper and the name Lighthouse is an allusion to the corner tower, designed by no less a person than Charles Rennie McIntosh.
- A Gallery of Modern Art - The main gallery of contemporary art in the city. Those exhibited have included Hackney, Salgado, Warhol and Bellany. If, like me, you’re not overly keen of the genre it does have a splendid café. On the bright side it is housed in a glorious neoclassical building.
- George Square - The city’s largest and best open space with its array of statuary and its high Victorian lavish city chamber a perfect example of what money, lots of it, can buy.
- Corinthian Club Grade - This impressive ‘A’ listed building with its magnificent internal domed ceiling is now an upmarket eatery. Listen and you’ll find out its original purpose.
- Merchant City - Hear a tale of 60’ architectural vandalism and of an 80s re-think that lead to the creation of a unique retail area. Do linger and have a coffee’, after all you will have deserved it, you’re about halfway through.
- Britannia Panoptican - So here’s literally a blast from the past, the world’s oldest music hall. Hear of the greats that trod these boards and how woman power saved not only the day but the building.
- Glasgow Cross - The hub of the city from early times listen to the importance of Market Crosses and their role in civic life, oh and unicorns.
- Police Museum - Here you can find out about this city’s early attempts to regulate its teeming population. Listen and find out how one of its sons’ surname became synonymous with law in the Wild West.
- Provands Lordship - This property dates from 1471 and is one of the two oldest buildings in Glasgow. Hear how it declined from being part of a range of grand monastic buildings to a sweet factory and it’s saving by enthusiastic volunteers aided by a wealthy local shipping magnate.
- Glasgow Cathedral - Built on the site that legend tells us is the very place where the patron saint of Glasgow, Saint Mungo, built his very own church.
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