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Stone is the predominant building material in Scotland, and locations of terracotta and architectural faience are relatively few, apart from the iconic India of Inchinnan offices (1929-30), Renfrewshire, and at Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire, where art deco faience facades were popular in the 1930s, but these are exceptional. However, compensations include the unparalleled collection of Doulton’s ceramic fountains in Glasgow, ranging from the newly restored Doulton Fountain (1887-8), now stationed outside the People’s Palace Museum on Glasgow Green, to the sad remains of the Hamilton Fountain, posing as a flowerbed in Maxwell Park, Pollokshields. There are also two outstanding Scottish locations for Coade stone: Gosford House (1790-1800), East Lothian, where there is a unique range of specially made and mostly figurative Coade stone ornament, and Dalmeny House (1814-17), Edinburgh, with its huge collection of gothic Coade ware, mainly in the form of architectural elements such as chimneys and turrets.

Floor tiles were produced in medieval Scotland, although hardly any remain in situ. The industrial-scale manufacture of decorative tiling was not a Scottish speciality, although rare delftware tiles of about 1755 from Glasgow’s Delftfield Pottery can be seen in a fire surround at Pollok House, Pollokshaws, Glasgow. When tiles were required they were often imported from England, as at Kilmory Castle, Argyll & Bute, which has the only known floor (1837) of Samuel Wright’s encaustic tiles, and at St John’s Episcopal Church, Jedburgh, where there is an excellent early Minton scheme of 1844. The architect Alexander Ross used Minton tiles bearing unusual Old Testament motifs at his Episcopal churches in Inverness (1869) and Fort William (1880), both Highland; indeed, tile pavements in Episcopal churches throughout Scotland merit further investigation. Minton’s and other manufacturers were involved in the display of sample floor designs of 1861 at the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh.

There are fine examples of art tilework throughout Scotland, for instance the nine Doulton pictorial tile panels at the Café Royal, Edinburgh, which date from shortly before the turn of the century; fire surrounds possibly by Daniel Cottier in Montrose, Angus; tiles and faience (1887) by the Dunmore Pottery in the former works manager’s house at Dunmore, Falkirk; and a superb pictorial frieze (1899) by Copeland & Sons at Park Circus, Kelvingrove, Glasgow. Scotland’s best-known supplier of pictorial panels is James Duncan Limited of Glasgow, a firm of tile decorators established in 1865 which specialised in tube-lining. In the 1920s and 1930s they were responsible for many spectacular shop interiors throughout Scotland and beyond, and worked on chains of shops including the Buttercup Dairies; production ceased around 1965. A major puzzle concerning Scotland’s, and in particular Glasgow’s, tile heritage is the survival of so few James Duncan locations, given that the firm was the city’s major supplier of shop tile panels for a century.

Of later work, the most significant is the series of ceramic murals carried out by the Scottish artist Robert Stewart (1924-95) during the 1960s and 1970s; these were made largely for public buildings and many have already been destroyed along with the buildings in which they were installed, but his superb abstract panels survive at Motherwell Theatre (1966), North Lanarkshire. Finally, one curiosity is the fate of the circular Doulton stoneware view indicators or toposcopes which were erected on the tops of Ben Macdui (1925), Moray; Lochnagar, Aberdeenshire; and Ben Nevis, Highland.[1] The Ben Nevis example was vandalised in the 1940s and removed, and it would be surprising if the other two have survived in such a harsh environment.

Service times and opening details of members of Scotland’s Churches Scheme are given in the 2004 edition of Churches to Visit in Scotland (National Museums of Scotland and Scottish Christian Press, Edinburgh, 2003). Suggested reading: Liz Arthur, Robert Stewart: Design 1946-95 (A. & C. Black, London, 2003); Gilbert T. Bell, The Monument That Moved: Springburn’s Ornamental Column (Springburn Museum Trust, Glasgow, 1999); Rudolph Kenna and Anthony Mooney, People’s Palaces: Victorian and Edwardian Pubs of Scotland (Paul Harris Publishing, Edinburgh, 1983); Elspeth King, People’s Pictures: The story of tiles in Glasgow (Glasgow Museums, 1991); Ray McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow (Liverpool University Presss, Liverpool, 2002); Christopher Norton, ‘Medieval Floor Tiles in Scotland’, pp137-173 in John Higgitt (ed), Medieval Art and Architecture in the Diocese of St Andrews (British Archaeological Association, 1994); Deborah Skinner, TACS Tour Notes: Architectural Ceramics in Glasgow (TACS, 1986). Scotland’s Gazetteer entries are listed alphabetically by unitary council; there are no entries for the area of Shetland Islands Council.

Aberdeen

ABERDEEN

Throughout the city of Aberdeen there are tiled street names, which originally involved a total of about 8,000 Minton’s encaustic tiles; these were replaced with replica encaustics during the late 1990s. In a prominent position about a quarter-mile north-west of the railway station is His Majesty’s Theatre (1904-8, architect Frank Matcham), Rosemount Viaduct; the interior is surprisingly restrained, but at the rear of the circle is a shoulder-height maroon-tiled dado with a flowery art nouveau frieze. The tiles were restored in 1982 by the Jackfield Conservation Studio as part of the theatre’s £3 million refurbishment. The ceramic Stations of the Cross (1963) by Adam Kossowski at St Peter’s Catholic Church, Chapel Court, Justice Street, (off Castlegate), were installed as part of a series of postwar embellishments of the church including new stained glass and an extension of the sanctuary. Down to the harbour to see a pretty piece of interwar seaside architecture, the Beach Ballroom (1926, extended early 1960s), Esplanade, with its cream faience facade; the original architects were Thomas Roberts & Hume, who won the commission in competition.[2] Although still a popular entertainment venue, the future use of the building remains uncertain.

Aberdeenshire

ELLON

The Church of St Mary on the Rock (1871, architect G. E. Street), Craighall, at the south end of Ellon, has floor tiles by Minton’s.

Angus

ARBROATH

Just south of the railway station at 16 Keptie Street is Smithies, a delicatessen whose complete tiled interior originated as a turn-of-the-century Lipton’s. The tiles are mainly pale yellow with a frieze of green thistles and an unusual dado. To the east of the A92, which runs north-south through the town, are the ruins of Arbroath Abbey (HS), a Tironensian monastery founded in 1178. In the upper room of the abbot’s house are the badly eroded remains of a medieval mosaic pavement of green and yellow tiles.

DUN

The House of Dun (NTS), off the A935 three miles west of Montrose, was designed by William Adam and built in 1730. The Dutch tiles of the saloon fireplace, purchased for the house in the early 1740s, have been carefully restored with replicas based on the original designs.

DYKEHEAD

Glen Prosen was one of the favourite haunts of the Antarctic explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Edward Adrian Wilson; indeed, Captain Scott planned his final expedition - during which both men died, in March 1912 - whilst staying in the glen. A monument to the pair, a terracotta fountain, was produced by the Compton Potters’ Arts Guild in 1919 and erected in the glen, but was later demolished by a car.[3] The remains have been incorporated into a cairn which stands on a bend beside the minor road up the eastern side of the valley, about a mile west of Dykehead at NO372606.

MONTROSE

The Links Hotel (originally Links House), Mid Links, is a mid eighteenth century mansion which was once the home of the owner of Montrose Linen Mill. Its interior has high quality mid Victorian decoration including stained glass by the aesthetic movement pioneer Daniel Cottier and several interesting tiled fire surrounds. It is not clear if Cottier & Co were responsible for the Links House fire surrounds, but the firm is known to have included tiles designed by John Moyr Smith and Albert Moore and others manufactured by Simpson & Sons in fireplaces at Coll-Earn House (1869-71), Auchterarder, Perth & Kinross.[4]

Argyll & Bute

DUNOON

The splendid interior of St John’s Church (built 1876-7 as Dunoon Free Church by architect Robert A. Bryden), Argyll Street, includes a small polychromatic Minton tile pavement in the sanctuary.

HELENSBURGH

The construction of St Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, William Street, was begun in 1867 and completed, apart from the tower (1930), in 1882; its architect was Robert Rowand Anderson (1834-1921), who carried out a series of Episcopalian commissions from the 1860s onward.[5] At Helensburgh, with its relatively wealthy congregation, he was able to produce a lavish interior including cuenca-style wall tiling in the chancel.

INVERARY

There is a colourful chancel tile pavement at All Saints Episcopal Church (1885-6, architects Wardrop & Anderson of Edinburgh), The Avenue.

KILMODAN

The library of Kilmodan Primary School, deep in rural Glendaruel (Cowal), is the location of one of Robert Stewart’s last site-specific ceramic murals, which he presented in 1975 in appreciation of the school’s education of his six children. The 6’ square abstract panel is highly textured and includes many local details.[6]

KILMORY

Kilmory Castle, just south of Lochgilphead, was much enlarged by Sir John Powlett Orde (1803-78) after he bought the estate in 1828. The London architect Joseph Gordon Davis, who carried out several commissions in the Lochgilphead area during the 1830s, extended the house between 1828 and 1836, decorating the main rooms in lavish Chinese style; further extensions were made around 1860. The estate was sold in 1949 and Kilmory Castle became the headquarters of Argyll and Bute Council in 1974. The original entrance hall (south of the present entrance) has a floor of encaustic tiles made by Samuel Wright of Shelton, Staffordshire, who patented his inlaying process for paving tiles in 1830 (Fig 329). Wright sold his moulds and equipment to Herbert Minton in 1835, but retained the patent rights; the Kilmory Castle floor was supplied by Minton in 1837 out of the stock taken over from Wright. The unglazed tiles are pale buff inlaid with black clay, and are of vaguely Moorish rather than gothic design.[7]

MOUNT STUART, BUTE

The third Marquess of Bute was nearing the end of creating his neo-medieval vision of Cardiff Castle (with his architect William Burges) when the family seat, Mount Stuart, about three miles south of Rothesay, was largely burnt out in 1877. The Marquess consulted the Edinburgh architect Robert Rowand Anderson, with whom he had previously collaborated, and it was decided to build a vast mansion, almost a palace; construction began in 1879 and took over three decades. Burges, whose 1873-5 Mount Stuart oratory survived the fire, was not involved in the rebuilding but his team of Cardiff craftsmen were responsible for the hugely rich interiors, strong on marble rather than the pictorial tiling of Cardiff Castle.[8]

The third Marquess died in 1900 and was succeeded by his son John, also a keen builder. He added a faience-vaulted, tile-lined, heated gothic swimming pool to Mount Stuart in the early 1900s; it is reached via a stone spiral staircase descending from the great hall. Replacements for some damaged tiles in the pool were made in the early 1990s by Susan and Douglas Dalgleish of Edinburgh Ceramics, who also designed a tube-lined tile frieze, showing plants and animals, for a refurbished pantry at Mount Stuart.

ROTHESAY, BUTE

Once ashore, the first building passed by passengers leaving the ferry from Wemyss Bay is Rothesay’s famous public convenience, built on the Pierhead in 1899-1900 when the resort was at its peak of popularity with day-trippers from Glasgow (Fig 330). This gentlemen’s lavatory was designed by the Rothesay architect John Russell Thomson (1841-1910), and the brown glazed bricks of its exterior were supplied by James Craig & Co of Kilmarnock; one of the bricks bears the firm’s name. Inside, the walls are lined with tiles, mainly yellow with some green, and on the ceramic mosaic floor, which includes the town’s coat of arms, stand twenty Twyfords imitation marble ceramic urinal stalls, six of them on a central island. The marble effect was achieved by the use of transfer printing. After being out of use for several years, the gents was restored and improved (a modern ladies toilet was created using outbuildings) during the early 1990s by Strathclyde Building Preservation Trust and the Jackfield Conservation Studio at a cost of almost £300,000; it reopened in 1994.

Just west of the pierhead on the Esplanade is the domed former Winter Garden (1923-4), now the Isle of Bute Discovery Centre; its ironwork was prefabricated at Glasgow’s Saracen Foundry. Inside, at the centre of the great dome, is a large and unusual light fitting in deeply moulded pale blue, brown and cream faience, most probably by Burmantofts. The twenties is very late for this type of colourful faience, suggesting that the light fitting originally belonged to the octagonal Victorian bandstand which was incorporated into the Winter Garden.

Clackmannanshire

ALLOA

East of the main shopping area on Primrose Street is the red sandstone Speirs Centre, built as the Public Baths and Gymnasium in 1895-8 by architects John Burnet, Son & Campbell. Originally the building (now a leisure centre) had swimming and plunge pools as well as Turkish and Russian baths, but the Turkish baths were destroyed by fire during refurbishment in 1966. Much has been altered internally with most of the tiling overpainted, but the dark green tiled lobby remains impressive, while almost full-height emphatically broad stripes of dark green and white tiling run throughout the entrance hall and stairwell.

Dumfries & Galloway

ANNAN

The colourful, clock-themed tile frieze above the windows of Jopson’s Jewellers, 83 High Street, was installed around 1990 as part of the town’s regeneration scheme; the tiles were made in Jackfield by the Decorative Tile Works.

CASTLE DOUGLAS

The mostly white-tiled, early twentieth century interior of Henderson’s butchers at 64 King Street includes a fine blue and white Wedgwood frieze in which animal heads alternate with rural scenes.

CHALLOCH

All Saints Episcopal Church (1871-2) stands a couple of miles south of Penninghame House, the home of Edward J. Stopford Blair, for whom the church was built by the London architects Habershon & Pite as a private chapel. The rich interior includes a tile pavement which becomes increasingly elaborate towards the sanctuary, and decorative wall tiling either side of the altar. The Buildings of Scotland gives the manufacturer of the floor tiles as Colla, but as they appear to be standard products of one of the large English manufacturers, perhaps this may have been the supplier.[9] Stopford Blair died in 1885 and his grave lies outside the east end of the church.

DUMFRIES

The ornate encaustic tile pavement in the sanctuary of St John the Evangelist Episcopal Church (1867-8), Lovers Walk, was designed in 1872 by Slater & Carpenter of London, architects of the church.[10] At the west end are two turn-of-the-century Powell’s opus sectile memorial wall panels; the cartoon for the Good Shepherd (1899) was by Percy James.

South of the centre on Bankend Road is the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary where the Cairt Frieze (‘cairt’ meaning a chart or map) was installed in the Macmillan Unit in 2004. The cartographically-inspired artwork, which includes hand-glazed porcelain tiles, was designed and made by the potter Will Levi Marshall (b1969) whose studio is near Auchencairn, about fifteen miles south-west of Dumfries.

GLENLUCE

In the late fifteenth century chapter house of Glenluce Abbey (HS), a Cistercian foundation whose remains stand in Dunragit, about two miles north-west of Glenluce, about 150 plain medieval glazed floor tiles survive around the central pier. Others may be found in the refectory and in the Abbey’s small museum.

PARTON

Parton is the Edwardian estate village built by B. Rigby Murray of Parton House (demolished 1964); it includes an L-shaped terrace of arts and crafts houses, an octagonal communal lavatory (now a summerhouse), a village hall and the Parish Church (1832-3), inside which is a fine Doulton tiled wall memorial to Ebie Gray (1863-92), the wife of John Rigby Murray. The tiles, which are set in a brown faience frame, show an angel in flowing pink robes on gold ground.

SANQUHAR

The ruined Victorian office of the Sanquhar & Kirkconnel Coal Co was still extant in the centre of Sanquhar on Church Road, just beyond the Tolbooth, in 2000. It was built from the firm’s own terracotta bricks.[11] North of the main street and across the railway line stood the Buccleuch Terracotta Works, which was in operation from the late nineteenth century until the 1960s.

Dundee

DUNDEE

Dundee’s most impressive ceramic installation overlooks the Firth of Tay from Earl Grey Place, close to the railway station but separated from it by a discouraging network of busy roads and walkways. To the west front of the Olympia Leisure Centre (1974) was added in the mid-1980s a huge abstract ceramic mural stretching across the whole width of the building; it was part of a refurbishment carried out by DDC Architects.[12] The mural is made up from Twintiles in shades of blue, pink and black, the combination resulting in a pleasing rippling appearance.

North-east at 36-40 Seagate is Robertson’s Bond (1897, architects Johnston & Baxter), a former bonded whisky warehouse which later became the Seagate Gallery; inside is a good tiled ceiling. Further from the centre in the suburb of Hilltown (at the Carnegie Street end of Church Street) is St Salvador’s Episcopal Church (1865-75, architect G. F. Bodley), with a spectacularly colourful interior including a tile pavement. Still further north-east on the corner of Arbroath Road and Morgan Street is the monumental form of the mid twentieth century Tay Spinners Jute Mill, now disused. Its Odeon-like facade includes much buff faience with grey-blue string courses, the square-arched canted corner being most impressive.

East Ayrshire

CUMNOCK

Dumfries House (about three miles west of Cumnock), the eighteenth century mansion which was the Bute family home for many years, has several tiled fire surrounds.

GALSTON

St Sophia’s R. C. Church (1885-6), Bentinck Street, is a Byzantine-style, brick-built domed church designed by the architect Robert Rowand Anderson for the third Marquess of Bute as a memorial to his mother. The dark red brickwork was restored in 2003 using bricks specially made by the Errol Brick Company of Errol, near Perth.

East Dunbartonshire

MILNGAVIE

A tube-lined abstract mural by Robert Stewart was installed at Douglas Academy, Craigton Road in 1966. It was Stewart’s third mural for a school site, and the design was based on the sight of a seagull passing in front of the sun; the tiles were fired several times to achieve the required density of colour and texture. The school may be rebuilt as part of a 2004 improvement plan.

East Lothian

DUNBAR

A well-preserved Buttercup Dairy trademark tile panel by James Duncan of Glasgow is still in situ in a High Street shop; see Edinburgh (Bruntsfield) for details of the Buttercup Dairy chain. Dunbar Castle (1790-2), which dominates the view from the High Street, was designed by Robert Adam for the Eighth Earl of Lauderdale; on its cornice is a large Coade stone winged sphinx.

LONGNIDDRY

Gosford House, two miles north-east of Longniddry, was built in 1790-1800 by Robert Adam for the Earl of Wemyss (Fig 331). It is decorated with a uniquely wide range of Coade stone ornament, some from the standard Coade catalogue but much figurative and specially made including medallions, plaques, sphinxes, and heraldic swans and lions.[13] Coade stone plaques and sculptures can be seen on the exterior of the house, the stable block and the boathouse on the lake.

East Renfrewshire

CLARKSTON

Holmwood House (1857-8, architect Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson) stands at 61-3 Netherlee Road, Clarkston, really a suburb of Glasgow but administratively in East Renfrewshire. It was built for James Couper, owner of a nearby paper mill, and is decorated in a picturesque version of classical Greek style; there is tiling in the entrance hall and elsewhere.

NEWTON MEARNS

An abstract ceramic mural by Robert Stewart measuring almost 7’ by 21’ was installed at the newly-built Eastwood High School, Capelrig Road, in 1965; the school still occupies the same building.

Edinburgh

DALMENY

Dalmeny House, which overlooks the Firth of Forth two miles north-east of the village of Dalmeny, was designed by the architect William Wilkins and built in 1814-17; it was Scotland’s first gothic revival house (Fig 332). Its numerous Coade chimneys, battlements, plaques, coats of arms and pinnacles make it the most extensive collection of gothic Coade ware surviving on a private house.[14] Unusually, Wilkins supplied the designs himself rather than ordering from Coade’s catalogue, a fact which undoubtedly contributed to the Dalmeny decorations costing nearly £5,000, probably the firm’s most lucrative domestic order.[15]

EDINBURGH

Close to Edinburgh Waverley railway station, on the north (New Town) side just beyond Princes Street, is the Café Royal, West Register Street, its classic interior boasting no fewer than nine Doulton pictorial panels; despite this it narrowly escaped demolition during the late 1960s to make way for a car park. The Café Royal has occupied its present site since 1863, and from the 1890s underwent a series of alterations culminating in 1900-1 with a scheme by the architect James MacIntyre Henry which created the large Circle Bar (the public bar) and a buffet bar, now the Oyster Bar, both with opulent decoration.[16] In the Circle Bar are six panels designed by John Eyre which depict famous inventors; they were executed by Walter J. Nunn assisted by Katherine Sturgeon, and were shown at the International Inventions Exhibition held in London in 1885.[17] A seventh inventor panel by Eyre is in the Oyster Bar, along with two panels painted by the seascape specialist Esther Lewis; these show a Liverpool paddle steamer and the Cunard liner Umbria, and were shown at the 1891 Royal Naval Exhibition held at Chelsea’s Royal Hospital, probably in the marine art section. All the inventor panels are said to have appeared at Edinburgh’s 1886 International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry, following which they were bought for the Café Royal. The Oyster Bar also has colourful relief wall tiling and a series of stained glass windows of sportsmen by the local firm Ballantine & Gardener (the designer was Thomas Wilson), while small tiled ovals showing putti are set into the bar counter.[18]

Bear left out of the Café Royal  and turn right into St Andrew Square; the Bank of Scotland, with its distinctive array of parapet statuary, soon appears on the right. It was built for the British Linen Bank in 1846 (architect David Bryce) and retains its original elaborate Minton tiled floor, which is still visible in the entrance hall and the passageway leading to the banking hall. On the south side of the square is the former Prudential Assurance (1895-9, architect Alfred Waterhouse & Son), now the Tiles bistro, with a spectacular Burmantofts faience interior in pale buff, brown and green with an unusual blue and white thistle frieze. The faience and tiling was restored during 1990-1 by Susan and Douglas Dalgleish of Edinburgh Ceramics, who had to produce several hundred replacement tiles of varying shapes and sizes; much experimentation was required to match the original glazes as closely as possible.

Take George Street west from St Andrew Square; at the first junction a diversion is possible (northward via Hanover Street) to see Unicorn Antiques, a former dairy at 65 Dundas Street. The fully-tiled interior includes three hand-painted blue and white panels of pastoral scenes, one signed Maw & Co. Otherwise, go south along Hanover Street then next right to find the Kenilworth at 152-4 Rose Street; the pub was completed around 1904 (architect Thomas Purves Marwick) and has lashings of wall tiling and an island bar. Take the next major left turning, which leads on to Princes Street; at its west end is St John’s Episcopal Church. Its stone reredos (1889, carved by James Kerr) is set with three large tile and mosaic panels of Christ, St John and St Mary by W. B. Simpson & Sons.

Now return along Princes Street and head south via The Mound to the Old Town, climbing Bank Street to reach the Royal Mile; here, turn left to see St Giles Cathedral on High Street. Fairly ornate encaustic tile pavements, probably by Maw & Co, remain in chapels to either side of the organ (the Chepman Aisle and the Holy Blood Aisle) and near the Thistle Chapel, though clearly much tiling has been removed. In the Albany Aisle (just left of the entrance), rearranged as war memorial chapel in 1951, two superb heraldic tiled roundels are set into the floor (Fig 333). It is possible to continue directly east along the Royal Mile to Holyroodhouse, but for a more ceramically interesting route, turn south along George IV Bridge (just west of the Cathedral), soon reaching the Royal Scottish Museum (1861-74) on the left in Chambers Street. Inside is the soaring ironwork of the Great Hall (1861), its original plain geometric tile flooring removed in 1971, but in the adjacent arcade a remarkable display remains, as this area was set aside for major manufacturers to submit sample pavements of their best designs (Fig 334). The most elaborate sections are by Robert Minton Taylor (including a trade tile) and Minton’s, with fine blue roundels of sea creatures, while Maw’s and the Patent Architectural Pottery of Poole are amongst the other firms represented.

At the east end of Chambers Street turn right into Nicholson Street, which becomes Clerk Street; St Peter’s Episcopal Church (1857-65), on the left in Lutton Place, has an elaborate scheme of Minton & Co encaustic tiles in its chancel.[19] The architect was William Slater of Slater & Carpenter, who designed an encaustic pavement for a Dumfries church in 1872 (see above, Dumfries & Galloway). Return along Clerk Street, passing the impressive white Hathern faience facade of the Odeon, opened as the New Victoria Cinema in 1930; the design was by the cinema architect William Edward Trent.[20] Back at the Royal Mile, turn right on to High Street for the mostly sixteenth century John Knox House, where several fire surrounds are decorated with late eighteenth or early nineteenth century Dutch tiles made in Rotterdam (Fig 335). The first floor fireplace has three floral panels, a speciality of Rotterdam’s De Bloempot factory, while other fireplace panels show religious scenes.[21]

Now to the east end of the Royal Mile for the Palace of Holyroodhouse, its complex building history beginning with the founding of Holyrood Abbey in 1128; it may have been a royal residence as early as the fourteenth century. James IV built a new palace on the site in 1501-5, and many alterations and extensions followed, including those made for Queen Victoria on and after her first visit in 1842. Ten rooms of the palace contain fireplace tiles, largely seventeenth and eighteenth century Dutch delftware tiles made at places such as Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam; in the King’s Closet there are a few eighteenth century English delftware tiles set amongst the Dutch tiles. The tiles were probably put into the fireplaces during the nineteenth century. Some of the most attractive tiles are in the two rooms associated with Mary Queen of Scots; in her Inner Chamber are Dutch tiles with landscapes and pastoral scenes of the second half of the seventeenth century, alternating with eighteenth century biblical scenes painted in cobalt blue. In her Outer Chamber are Dutch tiles depicting animals, children’s games, landscapes and seascapes of the second half of the seventeenth century, alternating with eighteenth century biblical tiles.[22]

To complete this circuit of inner Edinburgh, return to Waverley station via Calton Road and Princes Street. Above Calton Road and to the north (actually on Regent Road) is the Burns Monument (1830), a monumental circular temple which originally housed a statue of the poet Robert Burns. The 20’ diameter internal chamber has a floor of encaustic tiles with a floral motif.

Bruntsfield

On the south side of the Old Town, just beyond Toll Cross at 8 Leven Street, is Bennet’s Bar, its interior designed by the architect George Lyle and dating from 1891, with alterations by Lyle in 1906. The latter probably included the unusual arcade of recessed, round-headed mirrors which runs along the wall opposite the serving counter; framing each mirror are narrow pictorial tile panels by W. B. Simpson & Sons which depict cherubs and female figures. Nearby at 23 Leven Street is Millars fish shop; the interior has suffered some damage but retains most of one good pictorial tile panel showing a variety of fish; this may be the work of Craven Dunnill.

Just to the south - bear left along Bruntsfield Place and Whitehouse Loan - is the Meadows Lamp Gallery at 48 Warrender Park Road. The shop was formerly one of the Buttercup Dairy chain which had over 400 premises throughout Scotland, and has their trademark tube-lined pictorial panel - a girl in a pink dress offering a buttercup to a large brown cow - in the doorway. The source of the image was a Victorian painting which hung in the firm’s head office at Leith.[23] These oval panels are normally signed ‘J. Duncan Ltd Glasgow’, the firm that was responsible for tiling all the chain’s shops.[24] James Duncan’s were tile decorators, using blanks supplied by large manufacturers such as T. & R. Boote. The suppliers for several Buttercup Dairy shops during the First World War were Maw & Co, who sent tiles to Duncan’s for the outlet at 48 Warrender Park Road in 1917.[25] It is probable that Maw’s also supplied some of the plain, mostly green, tiling for the dairies, leaving Duncan’s to concentrate on designing and painting the picture panels.

Coates

St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Palmerston Place (a little way north of Haymarket station) was designed by George Gilbert Scott and built in 1874-9, although the chapter house and western spires were added later. The chancel is floored with an intricate pavement of 1878 combining Godwin encaustic tiles and marble.

Leith

The Central Bar, at the junction of Leith Walk and Duke Street, was built in 1898-9 to replace its predecessor, demolished when the North British Railway Company built Leith Central Station (1898-1903, disused) at the foot of the Walk. The bar’s architect was Peter Lyle Henderson (1848-1912), known throughout Scotland as ‘the brewers’ architect’; he was reputed to have the largest workload of new pub commissions of any Edinburgh architect. In both his pub and, more surprisingly, his brewery architecture he was noted for ornamental designs, specialising in tiled pub interiors. The Central Bar is an excellent example, its walls completely tiled from floor to ceiling and including four tiled murals of sporting activities by Minton Hollins; the tiles have been restored by Susan and Douglas Dalgleish of Edinburgh Ceramics (Fig 336).

Newhaven

Starbank Park, Starbank Road, was laid out around 1890; its Devlin Fountain (1910), in the lower part of the park near Laverockbank Road, was designed by George Simpson and is thought to have been made by Kilmarnock’s Southhook Potteries. The terracotta fountain, which was commissioned by Newhaven merchant Thomas Devlin, has been badly vandalised. Southhook Potteries, a sanitary ware firm who later branched out into art tiles, became a limited company in 1935.[26]

Ravelston

A six-panel tile mural entitled The Physic Garden, designed and produced by Margery Clinton and her assistant Evelyn Corbett, was installed in the dining room of the Mary Erskine School, Ravelston Dykes Road, in 1994. The mural commemorates the founding of the school in 1694, and comprises earthenware tiles of various sizes with complex lustre glazes and some tube-lining.[27]

Falkirk

DUNMORE

Pottery was made on the estate of the Earl of Dunmore from the 1790s, but after Peter Gardner (1835-1902) took charge of the works following the death of his father in 1866, production moved over to art pottery. Gardner experimented with unusual shapes and brightly coloured glazes, and the Dunmore Pottery prospered, even becoming a tourist attraction. After Gardner’s death the Pottery was sold and continued in production until around 1914, but all that remains today is the manager’s house and a range of workers’ cottages; the last bottle-kiln was destroyed in 1974. The pottery also produced tiles and colourful faience, some of which can still be seen in the manager’s house. In one room tiles made to commemorate the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1887 covered the ceiling and walls, but now only remain on the doors and fireplace.

FALKIRK

In the front bar of the Woodside Inn, 76 High Station Road, Woodside, Falkirk (not far from Falkirk High railway station) is a small Minton tile pavement; the pub also has good stained glass and mirrors.[28]

Fife

DUNFERMLINE

The philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline in 1835, and donated the Free Swimming Baths to his native town in 1875. A new Carnegie Centre was built at a cost of around £45,000 on an adjacent site in Pilmuir Street during 1902-5; the architect was Hippolyte J. Blanc (1844-1917) of Edinburgh. The building, now known as the Carnegie Leisure Centre, was modernised and extended in 1979-91. It retains some of its original polychrome wall tiling and Moorish-style faience archways in the Turkish baths.

GLENROTHES

The first houses at Glenrothes, Scotland’s second new town, were built in 1951 and its central shopping mall, the Kingdom Centre, was begun in 1961. Just inside, at Albany Gate, is a large terracotta tile mural showing local people and activities. It looks to date from the early 1980s, after the departure of David Harding (b1937), who occupied the post of Town Artist at Glenrothes during 1968-78. He oversaw the installation of many sculptures and other artworks in the town, including the early 1970s Celtic-inspired tiling by Pilkington’s which covered the entire outer wall of a Glenrothes school.[29]

KIRKCALDY

The interior decoration of the Feuars Arms PH, in Bogies Wynd, off Commercial Street, Pathhead, dates from 1904. Most impressive is the long, art nouveau brown-tiled bar counter, which is three-sided - although flat rather than bow-fronted - and has white glazed bricks on the serving side; the tiling is mostly plain but with some relief tiles. The front bar’s deep dado tiling is of the same colour and design, and includes two delicately painted ceramic panels (single slabs rather than tiles) of the Shepherdess and the Fool, both signed ‘Doulton & Co. Lambeth’. Just downhill from the pub in Flesh Wynd (off Mid Street) is Ravens Craig, a development of three fifteen-storey tower bocks built by Wimpey in 1964-5. The outer wall at the entrance to each block of flats is faced with a colourful abstract mosaic mural.

Glasgow

GLASGOW

Glasgow is predominantly a stone city, but there are some good examples of the use of tiles, terracotta and faience in building schemes dating from the late nineteenth century. The city’s architectural ceramics originate from major English manufacturers as well as local companies, notably the Glasgow tile decorating firm James Duncan Limited, which was established in 1865 and continued in business for a century. Duncan’s were responsible for designing many of the tube-lined wall tiles used in the entrance stairways of Glasgow’s tenement buildings, especially between about 1904 and 1910; these tiled communal areas were known as wally closes, from the word ‘wally’, meaning something made of white china. The tiling varied from mostly plain cream tiles with a simple coloured border to complex arrangements with pictorial elements; the more superior the tenement, the further the tiles were continued up the stairwell. Much of this tiling is still in existence, but is difficult to see as most closes are now have security gates. North of the river there are wally closes in Partick (G11) on Caird Drive, Crow Road, Havelock Street, Laurel Place, and Marlborough Avenue; in Hyndland (G12) on Falkland Street, Hyndland Road, Lauderdale Gardens and Queensborough Gardens; in North Kelvin (G20) on Avenuepark Street, Fergus Drive, Hotspur Street, Kelbourne Street, Oban Drive and Queen Margaret Drive; and south of the river in Pollokshields (G41) on Bellwood Street, Darnley Road, Deanston Drive, Kirkcaldy Road, Mount Stuart Street and Trefoil Avenue. Elspeth Gardner, a Glasgow designer and maker of tiles, has produced replica tiles for one of the closes in Bellwood Street.

Very few of the large number of Glasgow shop interiors tiled by James Duncan Limited survive, although occasional rediscoveries occur when shops are being refitted. The best remaining is the Nimmo General Store at 126 Nithsdale Road, Pollokshields; when Duncan’s supplied the tiling in 1894 this was Alex Reid’s fishmonger’s shop, and the interior has a continuous frieze incorporating ships and mermaids. There are also Duncan’s pictorial panels at a shop in Tollcross, on the south side of Tollcross Road just east of Braidfauld Street. Duncan’s tiled many of the Glasgow branches of the Buttercup Dairy, which had over 200 shops in the city, but all the interiors have disappeared.

To explore the ceramic locations of Glasgow’s centre, begin in George Square at the City Chambers (1883‑8, architect William Young). The interior, which dates from 1887-90, is a fine example of late nineteenth century civic grandeur with lavish stonework, plasterwork, mural painting and - originally - an elaborate tiling scheme from various factories, including Doulton’s and Burmantofts (Fig 337). The surviving ceramic highlight is the Councillors’ Corridor (or Faience Corridor), linking the committee rooms beneath a series of domes; it is elaborately clad with relief‑moulded and pierced Burmantofts faience and majolica tiles in yellow, green, blue and white (Fig 338). There are faience labels for the comittee rooms and a thistle motif appears in the decoration. The refreshment room, which once opened off the Councillors’ Corridor and whose decoration included Doulton pictorial medallions, has gone, but much Burmantofts plain tiling along corridors and stairwells remains, along with some red lustre tiles in the fireplace of the Council Chamber.[30]

At 12‑16 St Vincent Place, leading off the south-western edge of George Square, is the ornate white Doulton Carraraware facade of the former Anchor Line Building (1905-7, architect James Miller), restored by Ibstock Hathernware in 1994. Miller was the first Scottish architect to experiment with faience, but used it only once more, for the facade of Cranston’s Tearoom (1914-16) in Renfield Street, which has now been replaced with concrete.[31] On the pediment above the main entrance of Fraser’s Department Store, 45 Buchanan Street (at the west end of St Vincent Place), are life-size terracotta figures of 1884-5 representing Art and Industry below the royal coat of arms. Two blocks west on the corner of West Regent Street and Renfield Street is the former Prudential Assurance building (1888-90, architect Alfred Waterhouse & Son), now housing the restaurant Bouzy Rouge in the original Burmantofts tile-lined telling room, which also has a ceramic ceiling. Return to George Square via a southward loop taking in the Gallery of Modern Art in Queen Street. On the top floor, in the public facilities adjacent to the Air Gallery, are nine large ceramic panels of 1996 depicting stars, planets and galaxies by Susan and Douglas Dalgleish of Edinburgh Ceramics; two panels were recreated in 2001 following a fire.

Charing Cross

On the western fringe of the city centre, just beyond the motorway at the junction of Woodside Crescent and Sauchiehall Street is the partly terracotta, octagonal Cameron Memorial Fountain and Clock Tower (1895-6), commemorating Sir Charles Cameron (1841-1925), newspaper editor, popular Member of Parliament and a leader of the Temperance Movement. The overall design was by the architect Robert Bryden and Mr Lightbody of Doulton’s, who provided the buff and red terracotta; the bronze portrait medallion was by George Tinworth. The edifice has leant precariously for some years, and restoration was being considered in 2002.[32]

Garnethill

On the northern edge of the city centre at 25 Rose Street is St Aloysius R. C. Church (1908-10); the architect was Charles Menart from Belgium. Decoration of the interior, which has many mosaics, began in 1927 but was never completed; it was undergoing restoration in 2004. There are fourteen rectangular Stations of the Cross panels, each measuring about 2’ 6” across by 3’ 6” high and made from an opus sectile-like material which could be polished, painted glass or a ceramic. One is signed ‘J. M. McG.’, for Jessie M. McGeehan (1872-1961), an Airdrie-born painter of mainly figurative oils and watercolours who lived in Glasgow.

Glasgow Green

Glasgow Green, the finest open space in the city, lies by the riverside on the eastern edge of the centre. The main approach is from Saltmarket, just north of Albert Bridge, through the McLennan Arch, salvaged from the Ingram Street Assembly Rooms (1796) and moved here in 1991-2. Between 1890 and 2001 the path eastward from the arch led straight to the Doulton Fountain, originally known as the Victoria Fountain (1887‑8), which was made by Doulton & Co as the central feature of their exhibit at the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888 held in Kelvingrove Park (Fig 339). Following the exhibition, Sir Henry Doulton presented the pink and buff terracotta fountain to the City of Glasgow, and in 1890 it was re‑erected on Glasgow Green. The extravagant, three-storey structure, topped by a standing figure of Queen Victoria, was said to be the ‘largest thing of the kind ever executed in terracotta’.[33] The diameter of the outer basin was 70 feet, the overall height 46 feet; the body of the fountain was made from terracotta blocks filled with brick, stones and cement.[34]

The complex sculptures, which are symbolic of the British Empire, include four large allegorical figures: India, modelled by John Broad, who was also responsible for the figure of Queen Victoria; South Africa, modelled by Herbert Ellis; Canada, modelled by William Silver Frith; and Australia, modelled by Frederick Pomeroy. In addition there were figures of a sailor and Scottish, English and Irish soldiers, and four female water carriers. The overall design of the fountain was by Arthur Edward Pearce, and the modelling was supervised by Frith.[35]

Problems with the fountain began soon after it was moved to Glasgow Green; a lightning strike destroyed the statue of Queen Victoria in 1894, one of the basins sprang a leak in 1896, and vandalism was a constant difficulty. The internal hydraulic system ceased to function in 1965, and by 1990 the fountain had become severely decayed and needed scaffolding for support. However, in 1999 the City Council decided to restore the fountain and commissioned Ibstock Hathernware to carry out the work, which began in 2001; the estimated cost was about £1.2 million. After the fountain had been measured and dismantled, the buff terracotta was found to have a pink underbody, indicating that it was not fired thoroughly; this may explain why it weathered so badly. About 40% of the structure required replacement, including the four water carriers, for which new figures were modelled by Jez Ainsworth in 2002-3. The Doulton Fountain was re-erected on a new site in front of the People’s Palace Museum, on the east side of Glasgow Green, in 2005.

It is a perfect architectural complement to Templeton’s Carpet Factory (1888, now the Templeton Business Centre) just east on Templeton Street, with its colourful array of amazing barley-sugar faience mullions facing out on to Glasgow Green (Fig 340). The facade of this fantasy factory, based on Venice’s Doge’s Palace, was designed by William Leiper for the carpet manufacturer John Stewart Templeton, and makes full use of elaborate polychrome brickwork (some marked Carmichael Alloa) and terracotta, some of which was supplied by J. C. Edwards of Ruabon and the Leeds Fireclay Company; the interior is purely functional.[36] Extensions were added in the 1920s and in 1936‑7 (architect George A. Boswell), when some effort was made to match the splendour of the earlier building with the use of coloured glazed bricks and mosaic. It was bought by the Scottish Development Agency in 1979 and converted to a business centre.[37]

Gorbals

The former Scotland Street Public School (1904-6, architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh), 225 Scotland Street, is the only Mackintosh building where tiles are used on a large scale, notably on the first floor near both staircases, where there are stubby, blue-tiled square cross-section columns with green tiled capitals.[38] To the east, on the waterfront in Adelphi Street, is the former Adelphi Street School (now a business advice centre), where the 47’ long abstract tile mural by Robert Stewart installed in 1965 is still extant.

Hillhead

The extravagant Moorish style interior of the Western Baths Club (1876-81), a private swimming club in Cranworth Street, close to Hillhead underground station, includes much tiling. At the north end of the street is Vinicombe Street and the arched vanilla and pistachio striped faience frontage of the Botanic Gardens Garage (1912, architect D. V. Wylie).

Kelvingrove

Land for a park in Glasgow’s west end was purchased by the Corporation in 1852, and Joseph Paxton was commissioned to design West End (now Kelvingrove) Park in 1854. The architect Charles Wilson then completed the adjoining residential layout begun in the 1830s with a series of terraces centred on Park Circus, designed in 1855 and built in 1857-8. On its south-west, where the circus meets Park Street South, is 22 Park Circus (now used for marriage ceremonies and as offices), built in 1872-4 as the town house of the local ironfounder Walter MacFarlane (1817-85). Its interior design was by the architect James Boucher, who had already built two foundries for MacFarlane. The Art Journal of 1875 reported that Copeland & Sons supplied tiles for the bathroom and billiard room which were painted by R. J. Abraham (son of Copeland’s art director at the time), Lucien Besche, who also worked for Minton’s, and C. F. Hurten. The stunning three foot deep frieze in the former billiard room is painted with narrative designs of the four sporting ages of a gentleman: Health, Strength, Courage and Fortitude; it includes scenes of tiger hunting with elephants.[39]

The ironfounder’s adopted son - actually his nephew - Walter MacFarlane (1853-1932) moved to Park Circus in 1898, and the interior was redecorated soon afterwards by the Glasgow Style architects James Salmon (1873-1924) and his partner John Gaff Gillespie. Their additions include tile and mosaic fire surrounds. The glass mosaic in the anteroom fireplace portrays two girls reading, and was made in 1898 by the stained glass designer Stephen Adam Junior (1873-1960), who was best known for his domestic work.[40]

Below Park Circus, down in the south-east part of Kelvingrove Park, is the Stewart Memorial Fountain (1872), a structurally and symbolically complex design by the architect James Sellars. Around its upper basin runs a series of faience roundels showing the Signs of the Zodiac. The fountain was restored to working order in 1988 but has since deteriorated.

Partick

A three-panel representation of The Kingdom Come by ceramicist Katie Cuddon, a graduate of Glasgow School of Art, was installed in St Peter’s R. C. Church (1903), Hyndland Street, Partick, in 2003; the panels were made from a ceramic composite material and sheet glass.

Pollokshaws

Pollok House (NTS), in Pollok Park (off Pollokshaws Road), was built around 1747-52 for the Maxwell family. In the Keir Bedroom, the principal guest room, is a fireplace with rare in situ tin-glazed tiles probably made by Glasgow’s Delftfield Pottery and dating from about 1755. The Pottery was set up in 1748 and produced delftware tiles right from the start, their advertisements of 1752, 1757 and 1760 listing ‘chimney tiles’ amongst other products available.[41]

Pollokshields

On the east side of Maxwell Park, Glencairn Drive, Pollokshields (a mile or so north-east of Pollok Park) is the sad remnant of the Hamilton Fountain, its 40’ wide lowest basin now doing service as a flower bed. The 35’ high white Carraraware fountain was designed by Frank Burnet and made by Doulton’s in 1907; it was topped by a statue of Thomas Hamilton, a local merchant. Although renovated in 1953, the superstructure was dismantled in the late 1980s.[42]

Springburn

In the centre of Springburn Park, Balgrayhill Road, is an ornamental column topped by a unicorn, in fact the remains of a much larger Doulton Carraraware fountain of 1912 which originally stood nearby in Balgray Pleasure Ground; Hugh Reid, chairman of the North British Locomotive Company, had presented both Pleasure Ground and fountain to the people of Springburn in 1912. The ornate base of the fountain incorporated a relief of a Springburn-built locomotive as well as several grotesque dolphin water-spouts. The Pleasure Ground was closed around 1970 and the unicorn column moved to Springburn Park; the fate of the body of the fountain is unknown, as is its designer.[43] The unicorn is of particular interest, as its horn turns out to be made of bronze. There are few nineteenth or twentieth century terracotta unicorns in existence, possibly because of the difficulty of manufacturing a satisfactory horn. Two red terracotta unicorns dating from about 1902 look down from the upper part of the facade of the Mersey Brewery, Liverpool, but the material from which their horns are made is unclear.

Highland

DINGWALL

Set into the canted corner of Mansefield House, High Street, is an unusually colourful faience plaque marking Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee; within its floral frame, the letters ‘HA’ appear below a portrait of the Queen.

FORT WILLIAM

In the elaborate sanctuary of St Andrew’s Episcopal Church (1879-84, architect Alexander Ross), High Street, is a Minton encaustic tile pavement (1880) with Old Testament motifs.[44]

INVERNESS

St Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral, Ness Walk, was designed by the Inverness architect Alexander Ross (1834-1925) and built in 1866-9. As at his later St Andrew’s, Fort William (see above), Ross used Minton encaustic tiles with images from the Old Testament in the sanctuary pavement (1869). Here they depict the Passover, the bronze serpent and the Sacrifice of Abel.[45]

LOCHINVER

Highland Stoneware was established in 1974, opening its first factory at Lochinver the following year. The first tile panel was painted at Highland Stoneware in 1980, but it was not until the late 1990s that the firm produced them in significant numbers. However, an extruder bought in 1993 made tile production easier, and in that year tiles were used for ‘Welcome to Highland Stoneware Pottery’ signs outside the potteries at Ullapool (opened 1981) and Lochinver.[46] The facades of both potteries are decorated with large-scale mosaics made from their own waste ceramic materials; the designs were created by Highland Stoneware artists in collaboration with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mabley. On Loch Inver shore, close to the pottery, mosaic boulders have been created by decorating rocks in the same manner.

ULLAPOOL

For details of the mosaic facade (2002) of Highland Stoneware, Mill Street, and the ‘Welcome to Highland Stoneware Pottery’ sign, see Lochinver, Highland, above.

Inverclyde

GOUROCK

Original Artists, a former butcher’s shop at 25 Kempock Street, has one of the few remaining tiled interiors by James Duncan Limited of Glasgow; it includes a frieze showing a panoramic view of countryside and steamers on the Clyde. There are also some tiled tenement entrances in the same street.

GREENOCK

The gargantuan form of Greenock Municipal Buildings (1879-86, architects H. & D. Barclay), now Inverclyde Council Offices, looms over the pedestrian plaza at the centre of Greenock. Its north-western entrance, on Wallace Place, is faced with hexagonal, pale yellow wall tiles. The pedestrian underpass connecting Wallace Place and the Bullring Car Park is lined with a full-height tile mural (1964) by Robert Stewart showing Clyde paddle steamers; the detailed design was screen-printed on to plain white tiling. Compared to Stewart’s abstract murals with their innovative, richly coloured glazes, the work is somewhat uninspiring. Following damage by contractors, the mural was restored by the artist Bill Brown.

Midlothian

DALKEITH

St Mary’s Episcopal Church was built in 1843-5 as the private chapel for Dalkeith House by the architects William Burn and David Bryce; it stands at the north end of the High Street by the Town Gates, in what is now Dalkeith Country Park. There is an heraldic Minton encaustic pavement in the chancel. Dalkeith’s town centre, in the area where High Street meets South Street, was redeveloped in the early 1960s; the large, multicoloured Carter’s tile panel on the High Street side of the central block dates from this period and mixes textured with plain tiling. St David’s R. C. Church (1853-4, architect Joseph Hansom), Eskbank Road, is the southernmost of the town’s splendid array of spired churches; its Lady Chapel has a glazed, relief-tiled dado.

Moray

CULLEN

The entrance gateway to Cullen House (now flats), about a mile south-west of Cullen, was designed by Robert Adam and carried out in Coade stone in 1816; the archway is topped by three lions.

North Ayrshire

MILLPORT, GREAT CUMBRAE

During the mid nineteenth century the island of Great Cumbrae, which lies off Largs, was owned by George Boyle, sixth Earl of Glasgow, a great benefactor of the Episcopalian Church. He commissioned William Butterfield to design a chapel and college at Millport, the chapel being built during 1849-51 and designated the Cathedral of the Isles in 1876; it stands on College Street, on the edge of the town. Its Tractarian interior includes chancel wall tiling with large diamond patterns in green, black and red.

North Lanarkshire

MOTHERWELL

Chunky, concrete Motherwell Theatre was built in the 1960s as part of the Civic Centre development, well east of the town centre on Windmillhill Street; access to the theatre is via Camp Street. Entry to the Scandinavian-style interior is through a lobby defined by two sets of glass doors; on either side of this small space are voluptuous abstract tile murals measuring over 6’ by 8’ and made by Robert Stewart in 1966 at his Loch Striven Studio in Argyll (Fig 341). Their fabulous lustre glazes and eye-boggling colours are a huge contrast to Stewart’s 1978 mural in the town’s shopping centre, in the subway at the end of the Brandon Arcade. Here he used photographic images of old shops (printed by Peter Anderson) along with a sequence of silvery-grey to black pop art tiles which form a large oval motif when seen from a distance.[47] This unusual mural was in poor condition in 2004.

Orkney

KIRKWALL, MAINLAND

St Magnus Cathedral, Broad Street, dates from the mid twelfth century; its chancel was much rebuilt between 1913 and 1930, the work including the installation of an extensive encaustic tile pavement by Craven Dunnill during 1913-19. There are some unusual motifs, especially on the larger tiles, and the whole has a distinct Celtic feel.

Perth & Kinross

ERROL

The Errol Brick Company is based at Errol, eight miles east of Perth. Its ‘leaping salmon’ symbol may be seen at the works in the form of a brick sculpture near the beehive kiln.

Renfrewshire

INCHINNAN

The India Tyre & Rubber Company bought a parcel of land and old industrial buildings at Inchinnan in 1927; the architects Wallis, Gilbert & Partners were commissioned to produce designs for a modern office block and warehouse in 1929. The classic art deco India of Inchinnan building, which then stood beside the main Glasgow to Greenock road, was complete by 1930. The long, low, mainly white two-storey office block, designed to be seen from fast-moving vehicles, used green, black and red Carter’s faience on its capitals, bases and door surrounds, and string courses in green faience, all creating a memorable company image. Inside, the entrance hall was a minor art deco masterpiece, with terrazzo flooring bearing the company logo, red and black faience inlaid in archways, and angular glazing bars.[48]

In 1932, only two years after the building was finished, the company was taken over by Dunlop Ltd. The office block was extended in 1956, but the site was vacated in 1982 and the factory was eventually demolished, leaving the office block to deteriorate until Graham Technology plc commissioned its restoration in 1999; the Glasgow architect Gordon Gibb supervised the work, which included an unusual rear extension. Some of the original faience, including much from the 1956 building, required replacement; after much experimentation with glazes, Shaws of Darwen managed to replicate the faience in the requisite colours and forms, and restoration was completed in 2003.[49]

PAISLEY

The J. & P. Coats textile business was founded in Paisley in 1828. One of the members of the family firm was the younger brother of J. & P. Coats, the philanthropist Thomas Coats. Following his death in 1883, the family held an architectural competition for the design of a memorial church. It was won by Hippolyte J. Blanc, and the vast, gothic revival Thomas Coats Memorial Baptist Church, High Street, was opened in 1894. The interior is hugely lavish with much marble, alabaster and mosaic; even the toilets could be described as sumptuous, with Doulton’s floral sanitary ware, mosaic floors and wall tiling.

Scottish Borders

COLDSTREAM

The turn-of-the century interior of Telford’s butcher’s shop, 59 High Street is completely tiled, mainly in white with blue bands, but on the wall behind the counter is a 5’ by 3’ pictorial panel of sheep in rural setting, its colours mostly blue tones (Fig 342). The individual tiles measure 150mm square, suggesting they were manufactured in the Netherlands.

INNERLEITHEN

A well-preserved Buttercup Dairy trademark tile panel is still in situ in what is now an electrical goods shop on the north side of the High Street (Fig 343).

JEDBURGH

Built in 1843-4, St John’s Episcopal Church, Pleasance, was the first substantial Scottish church to be designed in the Tractarian manner, with lavish decoration. Its architect was John Hayward of Exeter and the funds were provided by John Kerr, seventh Marquess of Lothian, and his devout Anglican wife Cecil, daughter of the Marquess of Bath. Much of the original wall painting has been lost, but the 1844 encaustic tile pavement, which runs throughout the church, remains intact; Minton’s designs for these tiles have survived in Scottish archives.[50] In the south porch are specially-commissioned arms of the Lothian family and the diocese of Glasgow, and with a four-tile group of a knight on horseback. The nave pavement has repeats of ten different date and mongram tiles, while at its head is a sixteen-tile group centred on the royal arms. The two chancel step risers bear biblical inscriptions, leading up to the elaborate choir pavement, where the arrangement is in the form of a saltire; the sanctuary wall tiling includes enamelled plaques with symbols of the instruments of the passion in gold and deep blue (Fig 344). Even the ceiling is ceramic, being faced with tiles designed and presented by Herbert Minton; his blue porcelain tiles bear gilt stars and red quatrefoils showing sacred motifs. Because of the number of heraldic and other special designs, the Jedburgh scheme has few equivalents, and is a very unusual and complete example of early Minton tiling (Fig 345).[51]

LAUDER

The former dairy (1840) at Thirlstane Castle, now used to display laundry equipment, has peculiar black and white wall tiling which gives an impression of outsize spiders’ webs and was apparently intended to repel flies.

PAXTON

The main gateway to Paxton House is marked by a pair of Coade stone lions, probably dating from 1789. In the grounds, down by the River Tweed, is a large-scale modern glazed brick sculpture.

TWEEDSMUIR

An excellent art deco tile scheme of 1936 survives in the ladies’ and gentlemen’s toilets of the Crook Inn (on A701).

South Ayrshire

AYR

A mural comprising nearly 1,000 tiles designed and made by Susan and Douglas Dalgleish of Edinburgh Ceramics was installed in the public dining room of Ayr Hospital, Dalmellington Road, in 1997. The shaped, tube-lined and hand-painted tiles show local scenes.

PRESTWICK

Robert Stewart produced a ceramic mural for the international departure lounge of Glasgow Prestwick International Airport in 1973; it depicted the airport and Orangefield House, a seventeenth century mansion which was used as the main terminal building in the 1950s and early 1960s.

South Lanarkshire

BOTHWELL

In the graveyard of the Parish Church, Main Street, is the superb yet little-known buff Doulton terracotta monument to the poet and dramatist Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), who was born in Bothwell. The memorial is about 4’ in height, with a domed canopy sheltering a square cross-section central core, on which is a delightful mosaic depicting the poet and details of her life.

Stirling

KINBUCK

Just over a mile north-west of Kinbuck is Cromlix House (1874), now an hotel; in the chapel are sanctuary floor tiles of 1883 by the Campbell Tile Company bearing religious motifs and texts.[52]

West Dunbartonshire

DUMBARTON

Unusually for Scotland, Dumbarton’s High Street has a series of good art deco thirties faience facades, for instance the former Burton’s (1937-8) and the former City Bakeries at 55-59 with black, green and orange highlights. The later Royal Bank of Scotland (1972) at 37 continues the theme, using bands of cream tiling.

West Lothian

LINLITHGOW

Inside T. D. Anderson’s butcher’s shop at 163 High Street are several fine pictorial tile panels, probably Edwardian, set in unusual scrollwork frames; one shows a railway viaduct, an unusual subject for such panels.

TORPICHEN

On the main road through the village, in The Square, stands the octagonal Jubilee Fountain (adapted from an old wellhead) which bears a Queeen Victoria 1897 Diamond Jubilee terracotta plaque made by Stanley Brothers of Nuneaton (Fig 346). This is the most northerly location yet confirmed for a Stanley’s plaque; one has been reported to exist in Inverness, Highland, but its exact location (if extant) is unknown.

WEST CALDER

The interior of the Carnegie Public Library (1903, architect William Baillie), Harburn Road, has good original stained glass and tiling.

Western Isles

STORNOWAY (STEORNABHAGH), LEWIS

Stornoway Museum (Museum nan Eilean) opened in 1995 in the converted Secondary Department of the Nicolson Institute (1898), Francis Road (Sraid Fhrangain). The tiles lining the walls of its lobby, staircase and landing are well-known block-printed designs by Minton Hollins.

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23.^       Hans van Lemmen, Tiles: A Collector's Guide (Souvenir Press, London, 1979), p134.
24.^       Elspeth King, People's Pictures: The story of tiles in Glasgow (Glasgow Museums, Glasgow, 1991).
25.^       Shropshire Archives, Shrewsbury: Maw & Co  Abstract Book no 28, 10th September 1913 - 13th March 1919; 6001/5242. Job number 2557.
26.^       Bell, Monument That Moved (1999); British Clayworker, vol 45, 16th November 1936, p250.
27.^       Margery Clinton, 'A Physic Garden Mural', Ceramic Review, (1996) 159, pp42-3.
28.^       David Gamston, ed., CAMRA National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors  (CAMRA, St Albans, 2003).
29.^       Julian Barnard, The Decorative Tradition (Architectural Press, London, 1973), p126.
30.^       Journal of Decorative Art, February 1890, p26.
31.^       Audrey Sloan and Gordon Murray, James Miller, 1860-1947 (RIAS, Edinburgh, 1993).
32.^       Ray McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2002).
33.^       Deborah Skinner, TACS Tour Notes: Architectural Ceramics in Glasgow (TACS, 1986).
34.^       British Architect, 1888, vol 30, p456.
35.^       McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow (2002).
36.^       J. C. Edwards: Catalogue of Patterns, (1890).
37.^       'Templeton's commercial break', Architects' Journal, 21st November 1984, pp50-55.
38.^       Hans van Lemmen and Bart Verbrugge, Art Nouveau Tiles (Laurence King, London, 1999), pp65-7.
39.^       Skinner, TACS Tour Notes: Glasgow (1986).
40.^       Raymond O'Donnell, The life and work of James Salmon, Architect, 1873-1924 (Rutland Press, Edinburgh, 2003).
41.^       Jonathan Kinghorn and Gerard Quail, Delftfield: A Glasgow Pottery 1748-1823 (Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Glasgow, 1986).
42.^       McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow (2002).
43.^       Bell, Monument That Moved (1999).
44.^       John Gifford, Highlands and Islands Buildings of Scotland (Penguin, London, 1992).
45.^       Gifford, Highlands and Islands (1992).
46.^       Malcolm Haslam, Highland Stoneware: The first twenty five years of a Scottish pottery (Richard Dennis, Shepton Beauchamp, 1999).
47.^       Arthur, Robert Stewart (2003).
48.^       Joan S. Skinner, Form and Fancy: Factories and Factory Buildings by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, 1916-1939 (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 1997).
49.^       Joan Skinner, 'India of Inchinnan: The delights and demons of restoration', Glazed Expressions, (2002) 45, pp10-12.
50.^       Tristram Clarke, 'A display of Tractarian energy: St John's Episcopal Church, Jedburgh', Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 27 (1999).
51.^       Lynn Pearson, 'St John's Episcopal Church, Jedburgh', Glazed Expressions, (2003) 47, pp10-11.
52.^       John Gifford and Frank Arneil Walker, Stirling and Central Scotland Buildings of Scotland (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2002).

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