Old Glasgow Pubs is now completely AD FREE! If you find the site useful, please consider Becoming a member to support the costs of keeping the site available for the future!

Old Glasgow Pubs

You are here: Home / Archives for Other

Other

Does the public trust Glasgow pubs to be safe during Covid 19?

by 1 Comment

We recently ran a survey on our website to ask the opinions of fellow Glaswegians to see how much faith they had in our Glasgow establishments being Covid safe and to find out how many people are looking forward to going back to support their local pubs as soon as we were allowed to.

The survey showed fantastic support for Glasgow’s pubs with 85.71% of people eager to visit their local as soon as they opened and 80% confident that pubs would make sure that they are fully covid safe.

Since the pubs have opened we have seen tabled huddled under umbrellas in the outside seating areas to make sure they get those pints down their necks and have a gab with pals that they may not have seen in a while.

From us at Old Glasgow Pubs, please keep safe and if you feel it is safe to do so, support your local pubs. It has been a very hard year for the majority of businesses, but small pubs have taken a massive hit and showing your support will help give them hope for the future!

Top 10 BEST Gifts for Glasgow History Buffs

by Leave a Comment

Finding a gift for someone that loves Glasgow history can be a bit of a challenge with so many websites listing irrelevant gifts. Glasgow is steeped in history and it isn’t surprising that history gifts and activities are becoming more and more popular. I thought I would put together an evergrowing list of Glasgow history gifts and experiences that I would recommend, as a history buff myself!

#10 Glasgow Ghost Walk

Edinburgh is well known for their fun and friendly ghost walks through the city and the vaults of the city, but we decided to try out one of the Glasgow ghost walks and found it quite a lot of fun indeed! The Glasgow ghost walks are full of Glaswegian banter and great wee stories from history.

I should mention that it wasn’t quite as good as the Edinburgh tours for the fact that you don’t actually get to go into any ‘secret buildings’, but the interesting stories from Glasgow’s gruesome past made it all worthwhile!

These tours are usually on deal sites like Groupon at Halloween, but you can also view and book on TripAdvisor here.

#9 The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse is Scotland’s Centre for design and architecture located just off of Buchanan Street. This visitor centre offers a great tour detailing the history of Charles Rennie MacKinosh’s first public commission. The tour is led by very knowledgable staff that make the trip quite memorable.

There is a great view from Glasgow when you climb straight to the top of the building. Certainly is something that everyone interested in Glasgow history should visit.

Click here to find out more.

#8 Waverley

Have a great day out with a 1940’s paddle steamer that has been fully restored to the original 1940’s style. The Waverley sails from over 50 ports all across the UK so if a fantastic day out for the whole family! There are special events throughout the year to keep an eye out for and there is even a souvenir shop to grab some memorabilia and help support the paddle steamer.

Check out their website here for more information.

#7 Tenement House

Take a peek into what Glasgow life was like in the early 20th century with a trip to a Tenement house that has been frozen in time. This authentic tenement is a fantastic experience for anyone that would love a nostalgic trip down memory lane or if you are too young to know what life was like then, a great opportunity to step back in time for a while!

The tenement has that familiar hiss of working gaslights and lots of bits and pieces that were left by the original owner.

Click here to find out more

#6 Necropolis Tour

The Necropolis is one of Glasgow’s gems of the East-End and one of my favourite places in the whole city. The 37-acre cemetery is a fantastic walk through time with very old tombstones and mausoleums, a true peek into the history of Glasgow’s past. When you reach the top of the necropolis, you will have a magic view of the city.

The ‘Friends of Glasgow Necropolis’ run the official tours of the necropolis are the most knowledgable group on the subject and deliver a fantastic tour of the area. Their website also offers tour guide books if you would prefer to walk around by yourself.

Visit the official website to find out more.

#5 Tennent’s Brewery Tour

Arguably one of the most famous lagers to come out of Scotland, Tennent’s has been a regular drink in Glasgow for over 130 years! The Wellpark Brewery has a fantastic history with very interesting owners, each with loads of fun stories. The tour guides are enthusiastic and happy to answer any questions that you have and are quite knowledgable about the brewery.

The tour concludes in a small bar on-site that has a selection of Tennent’s lagers to try and a gift shop that sells memorabilia. A great accompaniment to your day out would be to visit the Drygate restaurant located just around the corner from the brewery.

Visit Tennent’s website to see more details.

#4 Glasgow History Books

Probably one of the easiest Glasgow history gifts would have to be a local history book. Just because it is an easy gift, doesn’t mean that it isn’t a great gift! History buffs love a good history book, so this gift is a win-win. Of course, no history book selection would be complete without mentioning Glasgow Pubs & Publicans and Up & Doon the Gallowgate. Both of these books are bursting with knowledge of Glasgow’s oldest boozers and the publicans that ran them. There is also a selection of great local Glasgow history books available at Waterstones. You can view the selection of books from Waterstone’s website here.

#3 Family History DNA Test

If you have ever wondered where your ancestors came from, but haven’t had the time to research your whole family tree yet, this is a fantastic service that gives you a breakdown of what country your family comes from as well as identifying your family tree matches.

We recently had one of these gifts in the family. It was really easy to use and the anticipation of the results kept us all guessing what country the distant family members were from. The guessing game was almost as fun as the actual results! Click here to learn more on the MyHeritage Website.

#2 Glasgow Central Station Tour

Get an exclusive look into Glasgow Central Station’s history with a guided tour of this fantastic train station. You are transported into the past as you climb down and explore some of the newly discovered Victorian platforms that have been discovered, untouched for decades! If you have been on this tour before, you will know how exciting this experience is and the best part is that the team are continuously exploring the platforms to find new areas, so you can go on the tour again and again to learn new things!
You can visit the Central Station Tours website here to book your experience or purchase gift vouchers too.

#1 Old Glasgow Pub Membership

No list of history gifts would be complete without mentioning one of the most unique Glasgow history gifts you can receive. An Old Glasgow Pubs membership gives you access to over three thousand of web pages of history, pictures and memories all about Glasgow’s pubs and publicans as well as an exclusive digital publication from history every month!
The great part of this membership is that by becoming a member of Old Glasgow Pubs, you are showing your love for Glasgow’s history and are personally supporting the continued research of Glasgow pub history.

The membership is currently available in a rolling monthly membership or as a one-off annual membership. Click here to read more about this membership.

I hope this list has been helpful in helping you pick some gifts or finding something for yourself! If there is anything you think should be included in the list, leave a comment below!

Tramp Claims Drunk on Fumes

by Leave a Comment

When reading through the National Guardian, I am always very amused when I read some of the ways that people lie to try and get out of trouble. In this article from January 1890, John Johnston was convicted of being drunk and incapable. Johnston then tells them that he hasn’t drank a single drop, but it was someone spilled whisky near him and he got drunk off the fumes! the snippet is below.

JOHN JOHNSTON, a tramp, convicted at the Police Court on Saturday of having been drunk and incapable on the previous evening asserted that he had not tasted drink, but had been overcome by the fumes of whisky which a man had spilt in passing him, the bottle having fallen out of his hand, and thus got broken. A Glasgow evening contemporary is surprised that John had the temerity to blame the present sultry weather for the extraordinary phenomenon, but an Edinburgh fail states that he may not have been the outrageous prevaricator that the worthy Bailie who sentenced him probably imagined. Intoxication has ere now confused the brain through more senses and more substances than one. there is said to be such a thing as obfuscation on green tea, and De Quincey records a case in which a sufferer got drunk on a beef-steak.

Who do you think is right? Is John Johnston telling the truth like the Edinburgh Daily suggests or do you think he was lying to try and get out of trouble, like the Glasgow evening contemporary believes?

Beer in the Middle Ages

by Leave a Comment

This is quite a short extract from the National Guardian in January of 1890, but I found it quite interesting and amusing! The short text tells us that beer and ale were sold in churches in the middle ages and were in competition with the small breweries of the time.

In the middle ages beer was drunk as a religious duty – and we may be sure that the duty was devoutly discharged. The early brewers were mostly breweresses. The sign of their trade was a bunch of ivy or a green bush hung over the door. But they encountered serious competition from the clergy, who held drinking bouts of unlimited duration, at which ale and beer were sold in the church house, or even perhaps within the walls of the sacred edifice itself, to all comers.

Well, that is certainly one way to get everyone to go to church regularly!

New Year’s Day on Argyle Street in 1890

by Leave a Comment

With the majority of pubs closing on New Year’s Day in 1890, one of the pubs on Argyle Street decided to ignore the ‘advice’ and stayed open. Much to the publican’s delight, it was mobbed! The snippet reads:

One of our subscribers in Argyle Street, Glasgow, informs us that on New Year’s Day his premises were visited by over 4000 customers. The stream of visitors was continuous and in not over 20 instances was a whole glass of spirits ordered. Ober 1200 twopenny pies in addition to piles of sandwiches were consumed, and the principal liquors ordered were beer and aerated waters. The great bulk of people were evidently from the country.

Staying open on New Year’s day certainly paid off for this publican!

Would you try Bovril Wine?

by Leave a Comment

In the National Guardian in January of 1890, we see a small article that mentions Bovril wine. Bovril was heavily advertised in the National Guardian and other publications at the time, but I wasn’t aware that they created a wine. Here is the article:

The organ of the Permissive Bill Association, The Reformer , “has no quarrel” with Bovril, but it damns “bovril wine,” the new preparation, because – horror of horrors! – it contains “selected port wine and other ingredients.” This is hard on Bovril, Ltd., and the “powers that be” out to see that their advertisement is not allowed to appear in the columns of a journal which gives them such a back-handed “puff.”

If you found this interesting and would like to support our research, you can become a member of Old Glasgow Pubs for the small price of a pint of beer a month! Members gain access to a monthly edition of the National Guardian (or other publications from the past) as well as exclusive content only available to members. Click here to find out more about the membership.