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Ruchill Free Church Halls

M169 Ruchill Free Church Halls

Address: 15–17, Shakespeare Street, Glasgow G20 8TH
Date: 1899
Client: Westbourne Free Church
Authorship: Authorship category 1 (Mackintosh) (Mackintosh)

Photograph of staircase windows at Ruchill Free Church Halls

This complex of meeting rooms and halls with an attached caretaker's house was built as mission premises by Westbourne Free Church, Kelvinside.

Authorship: There is no written evidence that Mackintosh designed the halls, but the surviving drawings are in his hand, and they include a rough preliminary sketch for the entrance front, which strongly suggests that he was the originator of the design and did not merely draw up a scheme by John Honeyman or John Keppie. Stylistic similarities with the nearly contemporary Glasgow School of Art and Queen's Cross Church support the view that Mackintosh was responsible for the Ruchill building too.

Alternative addresses:
Ruchill Street

Cost from office job book: £3212 9s 10d

Cost from other sources: 'Without any demand on the [Glasgow Free Church Building] Society for aid, the Westbourne congregation has secured a site in the Ruchill district, and has erected thereon, and opened free of debt, a hall and other side buildings ... Their enthusiasm and liberality were seen in their subscribing within a fortnight £4,336 for this most worthy object.' 1

Status: Standing building

Current name: Ruchill Kelvinside Parish Church hall

Current use: Church hall and café (2014)

Listing category: A

Historic Scotland/HB Number: 32356

RCAHMS Site Number: NS56NE 139.01

Grid Reference: NS 57256 68309

GPS coordinates: lat = 55.886784, lng = -4.283836   (Map)

Notes:

1: 'Report of Church-planting committee submitted to, and approved by, the Glasgow Presbytery at its meeting on October 23, 1900', The Free Church of Scotland Monthly, 1 December 1900, pp. 284–6.