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St. Vincent Street, GLASGOW, G2 5SE

An impressive city-centre office block. You can see inside it, if you wish, here http://www.123stvincentstreet.com/themovie/themovie.html

The large stone building after the junction with Renfield Street is the Bank of Scotland (grade A listed).

There are countless beautiful buildings along St Vincent Street as you head out West from Glasgow city centre, but this one really caught me eye. It is described on Wikipedia as the 'masterpiece' of its architect, John Hutchison, who, perhaps unfairly, is best known now as being the mentor of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a far more famous one. The building went up in the 1890s, which, on the grounds of it not being quite far enough in the past to make it truly historic, can surely be the only reason it is merely listed as a Category B building by Historic Environment Scotland, the body that decides these things. Because it really is quite a building. Norwich Union was an insurance company, dating from the late 18th Century, which merged with someone or other relatively recently, and the name they settled upon was Aviva. Initially, most bits of Norwich Union kept the old name, but eventually it was decided to use the Aviva name for everything the new bigger company oversaw. All these really old insurance companies once dealt in fire insurance predominantly. So much so that they all used to have their own private fire brigades which would only put out fires in the buildings of their customers, though it seems that if a customer's next door neighbour was on fire they had to do their stuff too. The fact that the people who were paying for the insurance were often paying for other people's fires to be put out too, in order to stop them spreading to their own more impressive properties, is undoubtedly part of what led to the fire brigade eventually becoming a public thing.

Much of Central Glasgow was made to look like 1960s New York for filming of scenes for the latest movie in the Indiana Jones series. This view shows Hope Street with the west side of Central Station in the background and the new Barclays Bank campus under construction in the distance.

Much of Central Glasgow was made to look like 1960s New York for filming of scenes for the latest movie in the Indiana Jones series. This view shows Hope Street with the west side of Central Station in the background and the new Barclays Bank campus under construction in the distance.

One of a pair at the corner of Hope Street.

A fine example of an ornate red sandstone office building. See also Image Image Image

A fine example of an ornate red sandstone office building. See also. Image Image Image

A fine example of an ornate red sandstone office building. See also. Image Image Image