Empire Exhibition, 1938

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Postby Margaret » Sat Feb 11, 2006 11:49 pm

I've had a look and couldn't find a topic on the 1911 Exhibition; how did that compare to the Empire Exhibition.
[img][img]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a256/weemegan/Meganp25.jpg[/img]
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From this season ticket (cost 15/-) the exhibition ran from May to October
How long did the others run for?
A lot of money for a few months...
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Postby maxpower » Sun Feb 12, 2006 2:56 pm

Ronnie wrote:There is a photograph of the South African pavilion - "now at an ICA site in Ayrshire" - in Alastair Borthwick, "The Empire Exhibition: Fifty Years On" (Glasgow: BBC Scotland, 1988). This will show you what you are looking for.


Thanks, but managed to find the house today, can't believe I missed it before now since it's right at the start of the ICI area. Got plenty of pics, if anyone's interested I'll post some later.
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Postby maxpower » Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:54 pm

Okay here's a few pictures from today, and as a reminder here is a link to a picture of the building from the Exhibition in Glasgow.

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The South African Pavilion from a distance, with ICI visable in the background.

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I think this is the same side of the building as featured in the old picture on the link above. The centre door has been replaced with a window, but a dark outline of the door remains.

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The 'front' of the building, as far as I know. There's another picture of the building from the 30s on the net somewhere that shows a similar view.

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Still the front, this time the right hand side.

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The far side of the building. This resembles the old photo more, but around the corner doesn't match up with the photo.

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Around the back of the building. The section on the left seems to be something that was added onto the building after it arrived at Ardeer. It's a rather bland looking building with flat roofs and second floor, with balcony!. Apparently both buildings were used as the factory staff restaurant at some point.

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Another view from around the back. Note the holes in the roof and the graffiti. :(

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Round the far side of the extension, with balcony visible!

We couldn't get inside the original part of the building, but a large hole behind a pile of rubble provided an entrance to the extension, and allowed us a quick look around inside. The place has massive fire damage (when the fire was I have no idea) but a lot of it is still intact, e.g. toilets, kitchens, along with a massive walk in freezer. Took lots of pics but won't post them unless anyone asks cos it's not inside the actual original house.

An internal door into the house was found, but sadly it was boarded up from the other side. :(
Last edited by maxpower on Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Ronnie » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:15 pm

Great work, Max! How easy is it to get into the Ardeer site?
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Postby maxpower » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:41 pm

Ronnie wrote:Great work, Max! How easy is it to get into the Ardeer site?


Getting to this part of the site is extremely easy actually. The house is just off the main road into ICI, and it's outwith the perimeter fence of the factory so it's just a matter of going heading past the Ardeer Industrial Estate, through the roundabout, down the stretch of road, and instead of heading into the main group of ICI buildings when the road curves left, take a right into a small road/path and the house sits alone in the trees.

It's worth a visit if anyone is ever passing by. I've marked the location with an arrow on this map.
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Postby Ronnie » Sun Feb 12, 2006 11:18 pm

Cheers, chum. That's another site on the hit list!
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Postby viceroy » Sat Feb 18, 2006 9:55 am

viceroy wrote:
crusty_bint wrote:The Tate Tower was situated at the top of the hill which is on the Paisly Rd West side of the park (I suppose), Helen St heads off south to Govan down past what appears to be a stadium (on the right)
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If you walk along the ridge of Bellahouston Hill you can still see where the Tait [not Tate] Tower was. Hidden among the trees there is a sunken area lined with stone. I seem to remember having read somewhere that the tower's foundations were anchored in this. Although it was of lightweight construction the tower was of course very tall and so its foundations had to go quite deep.


Here are some pictures of the area I mentioned -

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I think at some point it was turned into a sunken garden. For a while it was in a pretty sorry state but the council have started sprucing it up. Until recently you could get into it via the gate, but this is now padlocked.
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Postby Ronnie » Sat Feb 18, 2006 11:51 am

I think this sunken garden was associated with Ibrox Hill House rather than the Tait Tower.
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Postby viceroy » Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:10 pm

Not too sure about this Ronnie. Are you perhaps thinking about the Victorian walled garden behind the House for an Art Lover? This used to belong to Ibroxhill House which stood more or less where the Art Lover's House stands now.

The location of these pictures is in fact approximately where I believe Bellahouston House used to be. So maybe this feature belong to it. But I had heard/read - although I can't remember the source - that this sunken area is where the foundations of the Tait Tower were. Am always prepared to be proved wrong though and it would be interesting to know for definite what its origin is.
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Postby maxpower » Sat Feb 18, 2006 2:42 pm

I had a look at Google Earth with the overlay map someone posted earlier in this thread, and it shows that the tower was just to the left of these foundations (which are just barely visible through the trees on the GE aerial photos). The overlay has the outline of another building just behind the tower that doesn't appear to be part of the exhibition. This building matches up exactly (more or less) with the foundations.

EDIT: The outline mark on the overlay map is the exact same shape as the foundations, including the semi-circle wall on one edge. So it looks like the foundations were already there when the tower was built, and a quick look at a picture of Bellahouston House reveals it had an arched wall at the side like the foundations, so I'd guess that's what this is.

EDIT 2: this page has a diagram of a section of the park, and it mentions the big line passing over the remains of Bellahouston House, and if you look at the diagram it goes right over those foundations.

EDIT 3: ;)
Found this picture:
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Looks like it was still a garden back in '38.
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Postby Ronnie » Sat Feb 18, 2006 4:12 pm

Thanks, guys. Looks like I was wrong about the name of the house, but right about the garden not being the foundation of the Tait tower. Some you win ...
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Postby viceroy » Sat Feb 18, 2006 7:54 pm

Many thanks Max. That would seem to clear up the mystery.

There is a picture of Bellahouston House here. You can just see the curve on the right hand [i.e. North facing] side of the house.

Here are some pictures I took outside the sunken feature, also on the North facing side.

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Postby maxpower » Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:22 pm

Interesting pics, so that's an entrance on the curve side? I take it then that this whole thing is the remains of a basement or cellar, unless the house was built low in the ground?
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Postby My Kitten » Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:26 pm

Looks like an orb has found the entrance.
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Postby viceroy » Sat Feb 18, 2006 9:13 pm

My Kitten wrote:Looks like an orb has found the entrance.


A raindrop I'm afraid, which found its way onto the lens. It was bucketing from the heavens at the time.

Possibly the sunken area may be the remains of a basement and I'm puzzled about the entrance as well. I suspect quite a lot of reconstruction work was done at the time of the Exhibition rather than the original feature [whatever it was] just being taken over unaltered.
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