Duke Street Prison

Duke Street Prison (also known as Bridewell or the Northern or North Prison) was one of eight prisons which served Glasgow and its surrounding area prior to the mid nineteenth century. An early example of the 'separate system', it was noted in 1841 that Duke Street Prison was Scotland's only 'well managed prison'. Duke Street Prison received its first inmates in 1798. The passing in 1839 of An Act to Improve Prisons and Prison Discipline started the creation of a centralised prison system which resulted in the closure of many of Scotland's smaller prisons. Between 1839 and 1862, seven of Glasgow's prisons were closed, leaving only the Duke Street Prison. Further legislation in 1860 and 1877 brought the management of Scottish prisons under the control of the state and led to the building of larger prison complexes. After 1882, male prisoners from Duke Street were moved to the newly built prison HM Prison Barlinnie in the Eastern suburbs of Glasgow. Duke Street Prison then operated as a women's prison until 1955. In 1946 it was the first women's prison in Scotland to appoint a woman, the Hon Victoria Alexandrina Katherine Bruce as Governor. The building was demolished in 1958 to eventually make way for the Ladywell housing scheme which was built on the site from 1961–1964 and stands till this day. The only remaining structure of Duke Street Prison is some of the boundary wall. Living conditions within the prison became the subject of a Glasgow street song, sung to the tune of 'There Is a Happy Land'.

There is a happy land, doon Duke Street Jail, Where a' the prisoners stand, tied tae a nail. Ham an' eggs they never see, dirty watter fur yer tea; there they live in misery God Save the Queen!

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87 m

Alexander's School

Alexander's School, at 94 Duke Street, Glasgow, was designed by John Burnet and built in 1858 at a cost of £6000 for James Alexander, the proprietor of the cotton mill next door - itself an innovative 1849 fire-proof construction - to educate local children. It was known as "Alexander's Endowed School". It is built in an impressive Italianate style, with the heads of Homer, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Milton carved high on the front wall by John Crawford. The site is close to where the University of Glasgow stood in the 19th century, and was opposite Duke Street Women's Prison. Following the Education (Scotland) Act 1872, it became a state school known as the Ladywell School - the district has a well long associated with Our Lady - and in the 1960s became an Annexe to St Mungo's Academy. This was removed in 1977 to Crownpoint Road and the building housed a special needs school. The building was protected as a category B listed building in 1970, and this was upgraded to category A in 1998. In 1996 it was taken over by the East End Partnership, a local agency dedicated to urban regeneration. This commissioned extensive renovation in 2000 to form The Ladywell Business Centre, housing small businesses.
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156 m

Equestrian statue of William III, Glasgow

The equestrian statue of William III in Cathedral Square, Glasgow, is a 1735 work by an unknown sculptor.
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185 m

Barony Hall

The Barony Hall, (formerly the Barony Church), is a deconsecrated church building located on Castle Street in the Townhead area of Glasgow, Scotland, near Glasgow Cathedral, Glasgow Royal Infirmary and the city's oldest surviving house, Provand's Lordship. It is built in the red sandstone Victorian neo-Gothic-style. The original or Old Barony Church was built as a part of the Barony Parish in Glasgow by architect, James Adams. It opened in 1799 and served ceremonial and other congregational purposes. The replacement for the old building was designed by J. J. Burnet & J. A. Campbell and raised in 1889, and incorporated architectural artifacts from the old church and a number of other relics. The New Barony Church was acquired by the University of Strathclyde in 1986. It was restored in 1989 and is now a ceremonial hall and events venue known as the Barony Hall. It is one of the few buildings in the immediate area that survived the slum clearances of the 1960s as part of the Townhead 'Comprehensive Development Area' (CDA).
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190 m

Lady Well

The Lady Well is a holy well to the south of Glasgow Necropolis in Glasgow in Scotland. It was the last public well in Glasgow. It gave its name to the adjacent Ladywell St. Also known as 'Our Lady's Well', Glasgow's Ladywell is an artesian spring noted on early city maps and can be reliably assumed to predate the city. It lay just outside the city wall and Drygate Port in medieval times and will have refreshed Romans traveling the old Carntyne Highway east-west between forts along the Antonine Wall. Today it is erroneously believed to have been sunk for use of commoners denied access to a nearby Priest's Well, and/or to have been capped in the early 19th century out of fears of pollution or plague. Its wellhead was jointly rebuilt by the Merchants House and City Council in 1835-6 for enclosure in a new wall when the Fir Park behind it was turned into a gardened burial ground. While most wells in Glasgow were closed after freshwater piped from Loch Katrine transformed the city's health and sanitation in the 1860s, the Ladywell remained open for the public. An old article says the Ladywell was the last public well to be closed but gives no date. The classical wellhead installed by the 1836 restoration bears no resemblance to the original - an open round one - and remains there today. The current lintel stone (its second) notes the 1836 rebuild and another by the Merchant's House in 1874. A plaque commemorates its most recent refurbishment by Tennent Caledonian Breweries in 1983. The Ladywell remains capped.