Old Close in Gallowgate, 1843 by William Simpson (1823-1899).
These wooden houses were in an old close entered through a three-gabled house which stood facing the Gallowgate. The wooden houses were much older than the stone house in front. Most houses in Glasgow had been built of timber, but after the disastrous fires of 1652 and 1677 the magistrates decided that no new timber houses should be built and that "each person building de novo on the Hie Street, or repairing, sall be obleiged, and is hereby obleist, to doe it by stonework from heid to foot, back and foir, without any timber or daill".
This watercolour is one of a series of fifty-five painted by Simpson between 1893 and 1898. Most are based on sketches he completed fifty years earlier and which originally appeared as black and white illustrations in Views and Notices of Glasgow in Former Times, published in 1848 by Allan & Ferguson.
Reference: 765.89.233 / 892.ag
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums
Keywords:
backstairs, buckets, children, closes, factories, factory chimneys, fires, laundry, pails, paintings, streetscenes, tenements, timber clapperboard, washing poles, watercolours, women, wooden houses
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