A Visit to The Burrell Collection

The Neilston Men's Group recently visited The Burrell Collection in Glasgow. The collection of artworks, then valued at about one million pounds, was donated to the City of Glasgow by Sir William Burrell and his wife Constance in 1944.

 

Originally opening to the public in 1983, the collection's 9,000 works of art spanning 6,000 years of history are housed in Glasgow's Pollock Country Park in a purpose-built museum. It's since undergone a full refurbishment and has re-opened in March 2022 in a brand new building. I'd been to the earlier museum so was keen to see what the new one was like. First impressions were good - it's much bigger, there's lots more glass so inside is much brighter and spacious, with lots of places to have a seat and enjoy it. The museum has done a great job of presenting the collection in a clear and accessible way. The galleries are spacious and well-lit, with informative labels and interactive displays.

 

Sadly, parking is no longer free and it'll set you back £5 per car now. That said, the car park was very busy when we got there just after 11 a.m. but it was a sunny day as the park, Glasgow's largest, was busy too and there are plenty of walking trails around that if you want to make a day of it.

 

The collection is a mix of Chinese art, medieval treasures including stained glass, sculptures, arms and armour, over 200 tapestries, and paintings by renowned artists including Rembrandt, Manet, Cezanne, Hals and Degas. There are even bits of furniture, carpets and several, very large carved stone portals.

The Reheasal by Edgar Degas

There are three levels in the building and most of the artwork rooms have plenty of information and some have videos that fill the walls. There's even an animated movie of the painting above (The Rehearsal) that brings the characters to life and pans around the room - it's really well done. Yes, there are lifts if you need one as well as stairs.

Burrell was obviously a bit of a magpie, well, one with a great deal of money, but he also seems to be of a different mould from most of the people that made their money from shipping in that he had a bit of a social conscience and a philanthropic nature as he wanted his prized collection to be viewed and enjoyed by everyone.

The group split up and we wandered around for about an hour before meeting back at the coffee shop for a welcome refreshment. We could easily have spent a few more hours wandering around so I'd be happy to go back sometime.

To offset that parking fee, there are what seemed to be free, regular guided tours on the go. There's also a decent sized restaurant and a coffee shop, as well as the wee coffee shop we used, several picnic areas, an exhibition space and the obligatory souvenir shop.

The web site has a very decent "Plan Your Visit" page where you can get all the information you need before you go - opening times, accessibility, and how to get there. You can also download the floor plan but you can get a printed copy of that from reception as well.

I wish I'd spotted the fact there's a mobile app that has an interactive guide to the museum before we went so, if you are planning on going to the museum, then this might be worth checking out. It's available for Android and iOS and can be downloaded from the Bloomberg Connects web site. The app features free digital guides with expert-curated content to over 200 museums, galleries, sculpture parks, gardens, and cultural spaces from around the world, including a few others in Scotland. 

There are more photos taken in The Burrell Collection here:

A Visit to the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

The Neilston Men's Group visited the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC) in Nitshill today. The GMRC is basically the storehouse for the city museums' collections, when they're not on display at any of the venues, and is home to an impressive collection of around 1.4 million objects, from animals to armour, fine art to fossils, and much more. With only 2% of the collections on display in museums at any one time, you begin to realize just how many objects are stored here - it's huge!

 

A Coal Merchant's Lorry

 

The Resource Centre is made up of 17 environmentally controlled storage "pods", each with a different theme and collection, and visitors can explore these pods through a wide range of tours, talks and activities.

 

We opted for a one hour taster tour, which meant we only had time to visit two of the pods.

Grant, our guide, took us through the warren of corridors to the transportation pod, which contained everything from penny farthing cycles to more modern sports cars, prams to steam engines, motor bikes to lorries and so on. All in all, a varied mix of vehicles, which reminded me a bit of the exhibits in the Riverside Museum so it's likely these were part of that place's stock to draw on.

Suits of Armour

The second pod we visited, via a huge goods elevator, was full of arms and armour and Grant proved very knowledgeable about almost everything in there. It was a vast repository of historical arms (guns, rifles, pistols, swords, daggers, maces, etc.) and many suits of armour.

 

The only downside to having so many objects is that there are no fancy wee descriptive plaques or notes on any of them. Some have handwritten tags attached, mostly there are just reference numbers. You really do need a guide to tell you about what you're looking at.

I imagine we'll try and get back to visit some more the pods but, until then, there's a good virtual tour online of you want to see what's on offer:

 

Just to finish with a bit of humour, here's a sign displayed on the wall of one of the many corridors:

Gonnae No Dae That!

J&M Murdoch's Transport Museum

The Neilston Men's Group's first outing was to J&M Murdoch's Transport Museum, which has its home in what was originally Neilston's Crofthead Mill, which was built in 1881. The mill and surrounding buildings are now called Crofthead Industrial Estate.

Crofthead Mill

The mill is now home to J & M Murdoch & Son Ltd., a family business who provide road haulage, waste management, disposal and recycling services across central Scotland and are the biggest employer in the area.

Our group were met by brothers John and Drew Murdoch who explained that, trucking being their main business, it sparked a love of restoring older vehicles. That interest has spread among their workforce and it's not unusual to find people working on restoring vehicles long past going home time.

Just behind the reception, they have a wee museum housing a few large trucks, a collection of very nice motorcycles, a golf cart, a big American muscle car, an old tractor and even an electric train carriage and more. The lads are great recyclers so have also collected a range of industrial tools like scales and lifts and they even have the bell from an old Neilston school, rescued as it was being demolished.

Trucks

We were treated to a very nice sandwich lunch (there was cake as well) and we were shown a range of videos showing some of the things the company had been doing, including their aggregate reclamation facility on the braes opposite the village. All of it was interesting and the brothers and staff proved to be very affable and hospitable hosts. We even had a visit from their father John, one of the founders of the business back in 1965, who proved just as friendly and welcoming.

Most of the serious restoration work happens in another building so we all trooped over there for some more truck porn. I think one of the lads said it used to be a paint shed in the old days but it seemed pretty happy housing a collection of elderly trucks and other vehicles.

More Trucks

The group would like to thank the Murdoch's for allowing us to visit their facility, which isn't normally open to the public, and hear about their love of restoring old vehicles. We'd also like to thank Christine for organizing the lovely lunch. We all thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The Neilston Men's Group is a group of local men who get together regularly to socialise and participate in activities. They are committed to making a positive contribution to the local community, and they believe that visiting the transport museum was a valuable way to learn about our local heritage and the workings of our largest local business.

There are some more photos taken on the day here:

If you're interested in learning more about the history of Crofthead Mill, then take a look at this information on the Bobbins & Threads web site:

• The History of Neilston Mill