Glasgow, the dear green place is a city I know fairly well and love. One of the main reasons I love the city is the people. They really make the place, as they are down to earth, friendly and genuine. The Glaswegians make Glasgow. Due to this I have always wanted to go to the People’s Palace, a museum dedicated to the ordinary citizens of this wonderful city, but I have never got the chance to do so until this weekend when I was up visiting some friends in Glasgow.
The People’s Palace is a social history museum dedicated to Glasgow and its population since 1750 that coincides with Glasgow’s trade in tobacco just before the first blossomings of the industrial revolution, which made Glasgow the city that it is today. I have been to a number of social history museums of varying quality (they tend to all have a mangle, washboard and outside toilet) so I was wondering was how would this compare with others and how would it convey the Glaswegianess of the people? I half expected it to be very similar to the Pumphouse museum on Manchester.
The People’s Palace is located in Glasgow Green. This is a big park near the river Clyde in the east end of Glasgow. It is within walking distance from the City Centre. The park the oldest one in Glasgow dating back to 1450 has had a fine history of public speakers, concerts and was where the city’s washhouse was. It’s a lovely park and worth half a day if you get that rare Glasgow day without rain.
The museum itself is a wonderful red brick building with a huge conservatory, the Winter Gardens attached to its side. As it is a local authority museum it is free to get in. it pretty standard opening times being open from 10 to 5pm everyday except Friday and Sunday when it opens an hour later. It is also fully accessible to disabled visitors as it has lifts and disabled toilets.
The first thing I saw on entering the museum was the Victorian Winter Gardens full of tropical plants and interesting metal sculptures. This was a lovely place to just sit and watch the world go by. My friend told me that it was available for private functions and weddings. It is supposed to be very popular as it is booked up years in advance for weddings. I also noticed a small exhibition of paintings done by patients of the local NHS Trust. It was nice to see the museum was truly the people’s museum and was living and growing.
There should have been an introductory exhibition “ I belong to Glasgow”. However I either missed this or it was converted into a temporary exhibition on a 100 years of the Kings Theatre The first thing that struck me about this exhibition was the introductory board. It was big and bold and easy to read. This was good interpretation as it was plain to see what this exhibition was about. I really liked the large audiovisual, decorated to look like a theatre stage. It was a good centre piece for the exhibition and provided memories of popular Glaswegian comics alongside an interesting commentary. I also liked a mock up of a mirror in a dressing room. Unfortunately some of the interpretation boards were very busy with red seat backgrounds which I found quite distracting and nigh on impossible to read.
Upstairs to the next floor and I was captivated by the exhibition on the Glaswegian language “the patter“ in the middle of the floor. The sometimes difficult to understand Glaswegian accent is something that is unique to Glasgow and I thought they displayed this pretty well. The first things you encounter are television screens of Glasgow comics and you can sit in a comfy booth and listen to this. I was also transfixed with an audio soundtrack of children repeating playground rhymes and songs. I may be a Borders girl rather than a Glaswegian one but I remember a lot of them. I must have looked a right numpty (idiot) just singing along with songs such as Ye cannie shove yer Granny aff a bus. I think that is a mark of a good social history museum if you can identify with the exhibits. I also liked some simple lift up flaps with Glaswegian words and their Queen’s English equivalent.
The next section I skipped through. It was on the world wars. There looked like a good Anderson shelter for kids. I skipped through as I could get the Second World War anywhere and know a bit about Glasgow and Clydebank’s experience in the wars. The next exhibits the dairy and the steamie were more interesting. I think I associate the steamie with Glasgow. It did not matter that it was the old mangle and washboard, as it seemed to be presented differently. I saw a grandmother explaining to her grandkids all about them.
The other side of the first floor was specifically Glaswegian. There was a model of Duke Street Prison, which I believe is not far from Glasgow Green. There was also an exhibit on the Barrowlands Ballroom, once a favorite place for dancing and now a great place for seeing gigs. They had little cupboards to open that were exact replicas of those in the Barrowlands. Each one had something that represents an element of the Barrowlands including shoes, hats etc.
Finally on that floor there was an exhibition about the pros and cons of alcohol. I had studied the temperance movement in the West of Scotland and the association of poverty with drinking in my degree course. I found it interesting as it displayed both sides of the argument and had a lot of alcohol paraphernalia including 1990s alcopop bottles. Me and my friend had a good time remembering trying things such as Hooch, Two dogs and diamond Blush from Akrams shop in Stirling University.
Upstairs did not quite capture my imagination as much as downstairs. The middle seemed to be slightly political which I skipped. I am not that interested in politics. There was also a lot of space devoted to Glasgow’s industrial heritage. I noticed in this part the interpretation was a bit tatty and faded. Some of the words on some of the panels were very difficult to read. I was disappointed at this as the museum had a refurbishment in 1998 to bring it up to date. Either this display was from before the refurbishment or the panel has not been sturdy enough to be already fading. At the end of the industrial section there was a bit about famous Glaswegians. I marveled at Lulu’s 1970s suit but again a lot of it seemed to be a bit tatty.
The other end of the second floor interested me more. It was on housing another subject I studied in depth in my degree. I found the pictures of a stinking outside toilet in the Gorbals in the 1950s quite poignant and shocking because this was within my parent’s lifetime. They had a display of 19th century housing tickets (these showed how many people a house should hold measured by the house’s size in cubic metres. These houses were often raided in the middle of the night) as they made my lectures come alive. I also really liked a model about a single end (one roomed house) in the old tenements. It was nicely done with a soundtrack of Glaswegian voices and the lighting lit up different parts of the model when they were mentioned. Finally there was a bit on washing and cleanliness with a bath that probably came form a public washhouse and also a hairdryer that looked very like one my mum had when I was wee.
After that we were back down to the ground floor to explore the cafe and shop. (The important things especially when on a school trip). I was disappointed to find the cafe although nice was ran by Costa Coffee. That did nor feel Glaswegian at all. The shop was not bad. It sold a range of things from school kids souvenirs to Rennie Mackintosh jewellry. It had a good range of books, some tartan tat and the old fashioned advertisements that are a staple of all museum shops. I wanted to get a magnet for my magnet collection but they only had the old adverts ones which I could get anywhere. Instead I bought some coasters with Scottish words on them as my souvenir of my visit.
The museum seems keen on education. There was a talk on capitalism as part of Black History month but I was not that interested in that. There was also a guided tour around the museum that would have been interesting but it was on after our visit ended.
My visit was on a Sunday lunchtime and it seemed pretty busy with a number of families visiting. . It took about an hour and a half to walk round
I liked the People’s Place. It seemed like a place I could go to again and again if I was in Glasgow more often. I was disappointed with some faded and tatty interpretation and the cafe being run by Costa Coffee but over all I think it did convey the uniqueness of the city and people.
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