Plan of the Day: Take the train to Glasgow, enjoy the Willow Tea Room exhibit at the Kelvingrove Museum, enjoy “High Tea” at the The Willow Tea Room and return to Edinburgh to find a pub for dinner.

Getting to Glasgow

Our trip to Glasgow was pretty much uneventful, but here’s a key tip: get your train tickets at the terminal, not online. We scored a group ticket with senior discounts for everyone over 65, saving about half the cost. The walk from the Top Hat House to the station was short and easy. Once in Glasgow, the train’s last stop dropped us right in the heart of town. We enjoyed strolling through the city, admiring the architecture, exploring the Tenement House Museum, and visiting the Kelvingrove Museum. To cap it all off, we indulged in a lovely "high tea" (lunch) at the McIntosh Tea Room.

Tenement House Museum

Upon first glance, the Tenement House may seem like an ordinary middle-class tenement from the late 19th century, situated in Garnethill. However, as soon as you step inside, you are transported to a different era. The four rooms, meticulously restored, appear as if frozen in time, offering a unique window into life in early 20th-century Glasgow.

Miss Agnes Toward, a shorthand typist, made this house her home from 1911 until 1965. With great affection and care, she preserved her furniture and belongings, refusing to part with items that most people would have discarded. This extensive personal collection, now a precious time capsule, offers a unique opportunity for present-day visitors to connect and empathize with the past.

The docents that wait for you in the rooms are keen to point out all sorts of little details about the place, almost as if they too had occupied the rooms.

Kelvingrove Museum

Another city, another museum. Determined to find the Kelvingrove Museum, our walk through Glasgow showed us just some of the architecture lining the streets. We wanted to see the Mackintosh exhibit. The sign in the museum compared Mackintosh for Scotland to Gaudi for Spain, and Frank Lloyd Wright to America. The furniture and other items showed the perfection of Art Nouveau design. It provided the background to appreciate our next destination.

Willow Tea Room

Kate Cranston, the famous Glasgow Tea Room Entrepreneur, and one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s biggest supporters, was born in her father’s hotel in George Square, Glasgow in 1849. The Cranston family were avid supporters of the temperance movement and Kate’s brother Stuart gets the credit for opening the first Tea Room. He was a tea merchant and his enthusiasm for his product led him to have a kettle on hand in his shop to provide samples for his customers. Stuart then hit upon the idea of charging for this and set up some tables and chairs in the premises. He began selling cups of tea with the optional extra of cakes. The idea proved lucrative and soon Tea Rooms were sprouting up all over the city. George Walton and Charles Rennie Mackintosh taking inspiration from her brother, Kate decided to open her own Tea Rooms business. She had a total of four in Glasgow, Argyle Street, Ingram Street, Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street.

The Tea Rooms were an immediate success, partly due to Kate’s own distinctive character. A compassionate employer, Kate visited the homes of the girls who worked for her, ran a compulsory insurance scheme and made sure they all had three meals a day, a great perk given that many of the staff came from large poor families. Although a touch old fashioned and eccentric in her dress sense, Kate was the opposite in her business decisions. She used two relatively unknown designers at that time, George Walton and Charles Rennie Mackintosh – both of whom ensured that the Tea Rooms were truly unique, the interiors being critically acclaimed in the newspapers and art magazines of the day.

Coming back to today…Luckily we were not limited to tea, as I had feared. Jack savored a refreshing gin and tonic, the ladies delighted in their elegant teas, and I enjoyed a local beer. Lunch was just as memorable, featuring classic high tea favorites that were both tasty and satisfying.