Description

Two-storey two-bay semi-detached villas designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1890 for his cousin James Hamilton. Built of stugged and snecked coarse red ashlar sandstone with polished dressings. Symmetrically arranged, each has a large canted and piended outer bay with both single and mullioned window openings with cross-mullion windows in canted bays at the ground floor level. The villas originally had small-paned upper sashes with the lower sashes mostly two-paned. The house nearest the south (No.140) has leaded upper panels.

The slate roof is swept-down between over two lower, close-spaced narrow bays with bracketed eaves and chimneystacks. There is an architraved door on either flank.

The pair are set back from the pavement behind a low boundary wall with wrought iron gates and railings with curved longitudinal rails (not original). There is a pair of gatepiers at the south.

Statement of Interest

Originally known as Redclyffe and Torrisdale, this pair of houses (now numbered 140 and 142) were built for Charles Rennie Mackintosh's cousin, James Hamilton, a carting contractor. James Hamilton married in 1890 and the same year moved into Redclyffe, and let the other.

These houses were described as Mackintosh's first commission by Thomas Howarth in 1952 however no documentation has been discovered to confirm this (Mackintosh Architecture).

This stretch of Balgrayhill Road was known as Mosesfield Terrace in the early 1890s and was actively developed around 1890. Presumably because of their association with Mackintosh, these two houses were not demolished in the 1960s when all the surrounding 19th century villas were cleared to make way for public housing.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) was born in Glasgow and is regarded internationally as one of the leading architects and designers of the 20th century. He became known as a pioneer of Modernism, although his architecture took much inspiration from Scottish Baronial, and Scottish and English vernacular forms and their reinterpretation. The synthesis of modern and traditional forms led to a distinctive form of Scottish arts and crafts design, known as 'The Glasgow Style'. This was developed in collaboration with contemporaries Herbert McNair, and the sisters Francis and Margaret Macdonald (who would become his wife in 1900), who were known as 'The Four'. The Glasgow Style is now synonymous with Mackintosh and the City of Glasgow.

Mackintosh's work is wide-ranging and includes public, educational and religious buildings to private houses, interior decorative schemes and sculptures. He is associated with over 150 design projects, ranging from being the principal designer, to projects he was involved with as part of the firm of John Honeyman & Keppie (Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh from 1901). The most important work during this partnership was the Glasgow School of Art (LB33105), which was built in two phases from 1897 and culminated in the outstanding library of 1907.

Other key works include the Willow Tea Rooms (LB33173), the Glasgow Herald Building (now The Lighthouse) (LB33087) and Hill House (LB34761), which display the modern principles of the German concept of 'Gesamtkunstwerk', meaning the 'synthesis of the arts'. This is something that Mackintosh applied completely to all of his work, from the exterior to the internal decorative scheme and the furniture and fittings.

Mackintosh left Glasgow in 1914, setting up practice in London the following year. Later he and Margaret moved to France, where until his death, his artistic output largely turned to textile design and watercolours.

Listed building record revised in 2019.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17568697

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)