M245 Design for a hall of residence for Queen Margaret College

In June 1904, Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh drew up two plans for a new, four-storey hall of residence for Queen Margaret College. It included in the basement kitchens, servants' quarters and services; on the ground floor, dining and drawing rooms, a study and superintendant's rooms; on the first floor, individual bedrooms, shared studies and bathrooms; and on the second floor, three- and four-cubicle dormitories, and bathrooms. No elevation or section drawings appear to survive. No indication is given on the drawings of the envisaged location of the hall of residence. It is not clear how these drawings came to be commissioned. No mention is made of them in the archive of Queen Margaret Hall Co. Ltd nor are they mentioned in the minutes of the Queen Margaret College Student Union committee or Glasgow University Court. However, the need for a new hall of residence for the College, in addition to Lilybank House, as well as a Students' Union building was discussed by the Students' Union committee from 1903 onwards. However no new College halls of residence emerged until the 1920s. 1

Authorship: The drawings are signed by John Keppie. In 1894 he was described as 'honorary consulting architect' to the Queen Margaret Hall Co. Ltd at Lilybank House. Details of the design suggest at least the influence of Mackintosh: the six narrow bow windows in the long dining room recall the reception and music room in the design for a House for an Art Lover; a version of the Elizabethan-derived canted and mullioned bay windows on the ground and basement floors appears two years later in his design for Auchinibert.