Tenement House

While most remarkable structures are one-of-a-kind, some are fascinating because they are common. Tenement House (145 Buccleuch Street) in Glasgow belongs into this later group. It is a time capsule that depicts an exceptional vignette of life at the turn of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Its ordinariness is what makes it so significant.

It was built in 1892 and lived in by Agnes Toward, a shorthand typist, from 1911 until 1965. It retains the conventional elements of the tenement—an apartment in a small block of identical homes. The four-story block dwelling is made of the red sandstone that characterizes most of Glasgow's architecture from this era.

The home is typical of tenement blocks erected around the city in the boom years before World War I, with a centrally situated "close" (common entry) enabling access to all flats by a stone stair. It has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland since 1982, and elements such as gas lighting, a coal-fired cooking range, and a bed-recess off the kitchen have been preserved. It is also furnished with several of Toward's belongings, such as a rosewood upright piano and a grandfather clock. It gives visitors an idea of how regular people lived in one of Europe's great industrial capitals.

Location: 145 Buccleuch Street, Glasgow G3 6QN, Scotland