Old Glasgow Pubs

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Blue Dog.

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151 West George Street, Glasgow. G2 2JJ. Tel: 0141 229 0707.

Blue Dog opened it’s doors in December 2003 by Alan Tomkins.

To read more on Alan Tomkins premises click here.

Blue Dog 2012.

Since its conception in 2003, Blue Dog has firmly established itself as THEE place to go for cocktails in Glasgow.

Step inside the doors of 151 West George Street and you’ll find a New York Style piano bar renowned for its live entertainment programme and excellent drink selection.

Choose from a vast menu of classic and contemporary cocktails or simple select your preferred tipple from an astoundingly varied and well stocked gantry.

Enjoy the ambience, the live music & let our expert bartenders cater to your every drinking whim.

Interior view of the main bar.

Blue Dog sign.

Do you have anything to say about Blue Dog? If so please leave a comment.

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Boar’s Head Inn.

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Marshall Lane, off the Gallowgate.

This image is what the Boar’s Head Inn would have looked like in the 1880s.

Marshall Lane was situated a few yards west from the popular Hielan Jessie on the Gallowgate. This very narrow lane occupied small shops, two taverns and it is said that the first Roman Catholic Church and school in Glasgow which was demolished in March 1904. Sometimes the Lane was called Marshall Street.

The two taverns that sat in Marshall Lane were the Boar’s Head Inn and the Union Tavern. In 1825 the shop was then the Union Tavern was kept by Andrew McEvoy, the place may have appeared as a kind of side show to the prosperous Boar’s Head Inn.

The host and proprietor of the Boar’s Head in the late 1800s and later had the rather unique bit of good fortune to have himself and house perpetuated in place names, for the lane in 1904 bears both names the older natives using the term Boar’s Head Lane.

Marshall’s Inn as the locals would call it and stable yard in 1904 was as good repair as ever they were, but the licence to purvey intoxicants is gone, and the manufacturer of tin goods has succeeded. As for the Union Tavern, with its quaint double door and bow windows, it is closed for ever.

For many years the old tavern was used for the sale of various kinds of merchandise, but the faction for dealing in little shops situated in lanes, seems to be passing away.
But it still possesses the small importance of being the last of its kind.
In the narrow street which survive in many towns in Scotland till the 1860s, these old time shop fronts added not a little to the picturesqueness of the street architecture. Marshall’s Inn was in its day the aristocratic military rendezvous and was patronized chiefly by sergeants and corporals from the barracks on the opposite side of the Gallowgate.

An etiquette was observed in its tap-room similar to what would have obtained in a London licensed house of the same class. Private soldiers were the customers of less high toned places of the western Gallowgate district.

Boar’s Head Inn on the east side of Marshall Street off Gallowgate which is now used as a tinsmiths shop in 1904 with three rooms and kitchen house above the 71st Infantry regiment (better known as the “The Glasgow Keelie’s) were located in the neighbouring barracks and used to gather here and fight their battles over again.

The landlady grazed her cows on the green, and when youngster’s accompanied their parents to the Boar’s Head inn were always treated to a complimentary glass of milk.

Sergt. Monk, of the Royal Horse Artillery, who recruited here and died only recently, had many a story to tell of it as a military rendezvous, and often the old veteran said as a young soldier had he sat in the snug little parlour and discussed oat-cake and cheese and sweet ale, the bitter beer of those days.

The old building opposite which formed the first Roman Catholic Church and school in Glasgow was demolished in March 1904.

Facts…
Licensee’s for the Boar’s Head Inn and the Union Tavern and some names known to have a business here…
In 1815
John Imrie, porter house. Adam Wilkie, Porter house.
1818 John Bain, spirit dealer.
J Bennie, Grocer.
Thomas Graham, ale & porter cellar.
James Gunn, tailer.
R Horn, Teacher.
William Miller, shoemaker.
Parlane McFarlane, spirit dealer.
Andrew Wardrop, spirit dealer.
T Watson, spirit dealer.
Mrs Adam Wilkie, porter house.
1826 Thomas Graham ale and porter merchant, 16 Marshall Street.
1828
William Mason, Slater, 28 Marshall Lane.
Mrs Ross, Grocer no. 22.
John Smith, Grain Merchant no. 17.
William McLeod, Spirit Dealer no. 11.
Thomas Sanders, Spirit Dealer no. 3.
1833
Peter Herriot, Teacher no. 27 Marshall Lane.
William McLeod, Spirit Dealer and Cooper no. 11.
Hugh Newton, Spirit Dealer no. 5.
J McIntyre, Hairdresser no. 65.
Alexander Harvey, Millers. David Boag, Spirit Dealer no. 7.
1840
William Boag, Boar head Tavern no.16.
Arthur Haughy, superintendent, Catholic Orphan Institution no. 22.
John McCarron, Teacher of book-keeping, Mathematics and Geography no.18.
1845
James Fairley, Pawnbroker no. 25.A Hanghy, superintendent, Catholic Orphan Institution no. 22 Marshall Lane.

Do you remember any of the old pubs on the Gallowgate? If so please leave a comment.

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Blythswood Hotel.

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The Blythswood Hotel, 248 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Mr Alexander Ross. 1887.

In 1887 Alexander Ross was proprietor of the Blythswood Hotel, 248 Argyle Street, Glasgow, situated at the corner of Argyle Street and Hope Street right opposite Oswald Street. The hotel was two minutes walk from the Caledonian Central Station and five minutes walk from the St. Enoch’s Station.

Mr Ross was a real Highlander and a native of Sutherlandshire born in 1847. His wife owned the hotel from 1877 to 1884 before Mr Ross purchased the establishments.

Do you remember any of the old pubs in Argyle Street? If so please leave a comment.

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Bar Bloc+.

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117 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 2SZ, Tel: 0141 574 6066.

Bar Bloc +, 117 Bath Street, Glasgow.

Interior view of the main bar.

Tell us your thoughts on this independent Bar of the year 2016.

Bloc+. 2018.

Facts…
City Bars Land Gongs…
Bloc, the Pot Still, Blue Dog, Atlantic Bar, Boclair House were winners at the Scottish Bar and Pub Awards, 2016.
The Glasgow Bars picked up various gongs such as Disaronno Cocktail Bar of the Year, New Bar of the year, Kopparberg Independent Bar of the year, Glencairn Crystal New Venue of the year and Whisky Bar of the year.
Blue Dog received the title Disaranno Cocktail Bar of the year for the second time.
More than 500 people applauded as winners picked up their accolades at what is Scotland’s longest running Licensed Trade Awards.

Do you know anything about this pub? If so please leave a comment.

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Black Bull Inn.

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Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Painting of the Black Bull Inn.

Glasgow’s first theatre was erected against the wall of the Bishop’s Palace, near the Cathedral. It was a primitive wooden shack. It was opened as the Castle Yard Booth, between 1752-1754. Reverend George Whitfield declared it a den of iniquity and burned it to the ground.

George Whitfield raised £60 towards the erection of the Black Bull Inn.

The Black Bull Inn, Argyle Street.

In the 1770s Patrick Heron, Vintner at the Black Bull Inn, advertised that there sets out from his house, and from Mrs Gibson’s Inn, Grassmarket, Edinburgh, a stage couch to go to Edinburgh by Falkirk and to reach Edinburgh that evening and run it from Glasgow upon Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and from Edinburgh on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

The Black Bull Inn was founded by the Highland Gaelic Society in 1759. The Inn was an important stage-coach post which stood facing Stockwell Street where Marks & Spencers now stands at the corner of Glassford Street. Robert Burns stayed at the Black Bull Inn a few times and wrote to his lover Agnes McIehose, because she was a married woman, they feared their affair would be discovered, so to conseal their identities, they signed the letters “Sylvander” and “Clarinda.”

This plaque is displayed on Marks & Spencers, Argyle Street.

The Black Bull stood on the west port of the city at Stockwell, in Argyll Street and here the cattle market was held. At this point, on the south side of Argyll Street, there stood in 1750 a thatched hostelry for drovers, with a swinging sign of a Black Bull. Here was a little draw-well famed for its water, which is remembered in the verse of “The Lament for Captain Paton,” one of which runs:- “Or if a bowl was mentioned, The Captain he would ring, And bid Nelly to the West Port, And a stoup of water bring; Then he would mix the genuine stuff, As they made it long ago, With limes that on his property In Trinidad did grow. O! we ne’er shall taste the like Of Captain Pateon’s punch no mo’!”

The Black Bull Inn.

The Inn was built b the Glasgow Highland Society in 1758. In that year the promoters enlisted nine services of the famous preacher George Whitfield, who conducted a service in the Cathedral churchyard, and a generous collection was made for the building fund.

The Inn had accommodation for 38 horses, 40 sleepers, and 5,000 stones of hay, and formed the west most part of the premises lately occupied by Mann, Byars & Co. The two middle storey’s, each with nine windows, and the ornamented corners of the original building are still intact, but the attics have been altered and the pediment removed. Robert Burns made it his headquarters in 1787 and 1788, and his amorous effusion to Clarinda was written under its roof. A tablet referring to his association with the inn has this year been affixed to the building by the Scottish Burns Club. The landlord at that time was George Durie.

Argyle Street was named after the duke of that time, and in 1761 the duke lay in state in the Black Bull en route to the graveyard in Kilmun.

The Inn was the headquarters of the Fox Club, a whig one, and the historic address to Queen Charlotte was prepared there, its rival being the Pitt Club, which was Tory. A Literary and Commercial Society held its meetings there also, and among its members and ornaments were Adam Smith, author of the “Wealth of Nations”; David Hume, the historian; and Edward Burke, the orator. It was the favourite place for hunt balls in its day, and was finally transformed into a warehouse in 1849.

Do you have any memories of Argyle Street Pubs? If so please leave a comment.

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