Former Dowanside House, 74 Victoria Crescent Road, Glasgow, Glasgow

Description

Circa 1855 with later 1898 mansard and 1st floor bays by Pugin & Pugin. 2-storey and basement 6-bay former double villa with later attic storey and later alterations and additions including 1896 wing to E. Coursed ashlar. Base course, architraved and corniced windows, bay windows to advanced outer bays, cill course to 1st floor, dentilled eaves cornice, mansard roof with dormers. Angled entrance doors set into former bays to left and right.

1896 Wing: 3-storey and attic 6-bay predominantly red sandstone former training college addition with later alterations and additions. Cill courses, roll-moulded openings, bay windows to end bays, round-headed windows to 2nd floor, central buttress dated '1896' supports stone round-headed niche with statue of Virgin Mary surmounted by a cross breaking eaves at 2nd floor. Some stone mullioned and mullioned and transomed windows. Piended dormers to attic.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Tripartite canted bays to outer bays flank inner 2 bay section. At outer corners, recessed angled 2-storey entrance doors reached by flight of steps. Pilastered and corniced doorpiece with rectangular fanlight. Attached to former chapel to left and by single bay to 1896 wing to right.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: (1896 wing) symmetrical. Tripartite canted bays to outer bays flank inner 4-bay section. Attached to linking wing to former training college and Notre Dame Primary School to right.

Villa: Predominantly timber sash and case windows, some plate glass, some 2-pane, some with horns. Timber mullions inserted at first floor and one to ground floor main elevation. Graded grey slates. Gable stacks.

1896 wing: Predominantly plate glass timber sash and case windows with horns. Grey slates.

INTERIOR: (villa) good despite subdivisions and alterations. Each half predominantly mirror image. Impressive composite columned and corniced entrance hall with stairs with decorative cast-iron banister with glazed cupola above (now not open to sky due to added storey). Stained and painted glass upper panel survives to entrance door to left. Very good deeply undercut cornices to principal rooms, some surviving marble chimneypieces. Good quality timberwork. Pugin & Pugin top floor supported by decorative network of chamfered timber posts, similar to work in chapel (see separate listing).

1896 wing: simple. Large classroom has slender cast-iron columns.

GATEPIERS, RAILINGS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: to S, low coped sandstone wall with railings with pair of stone square piers with shallow pyramidal caps to left. To right, some slender cast-iron piers. To villa entrances, some sections of decorative cast-iron railings.

Statement of Interest

Dowanside House was constructed as part of the large-scale development of the west end of Glasgow. Large villas and terraced houses were built in Dowanhill of which Dowanside is a good example of a double villa. Despite alterations to form a convent, school and now offices it retains many fine internal features. Pugin & Pugin were responsible for adding the mansard roof storey and the 1st floor bay windows as part of a scheme of works at the site.

Dowanside has further interest in its contribution to Glasgow's social history. It formed part of the first Catholic Teacher Training College in Scotland and became the first Montessori school in Scotland.

In 1894 four Sisters from the Liverpool Notre Dame College were sent to Glasgow to found the first (female) teacher training college. They bought for their convent East Dowanside and purchased the remaining half a year later. They took boarders, day boarders and evening pupils. A practising school was a necessity for the teacher training college and The Dowanhill Higher Grade Practising School opened on 23rd August 1897. An additional wing had been rapidly added to the convent to the E for teaching and is dated 1896. 7 Bowmont Gardens was bought c1897 for housing students and boarders and was called St Joseph's. The other houses in the terrace gradually came into the nuns possession.

There was some local opposition to the Sister's work and expansion, however, they were not persuaded to relocate and continued to grow.

The expansion of the practising school and the need for an appropriate place of worship resulted in the construction of the chapel to the W by Pugin & Pugin. It was opened in 1900 and contained the practising school in the ground floor with the chapel above. A red brick addition behind the chapel provided further student classrooms and dormitories.

Around 1905 a new Higher Grade School was constructed by Bruce & Hay to the SE which contained an extension to the college which in turn was linked to the 1896 wing. This building taught the older pupils and infants continued to be taught in the school under the chapel. In 1924 the school was officially recognised as a Montessori school, the first in Scotland.

A larger High School was opened to the N in 1953 (Notre Dame High School, see separate listing).

The Sisters had largely moved out of the Dowanhill site by the late 1960s. The college relocated to Duntochter Road in Bearsden (St Andrew's College, see separate listing). The chapel, Dowanside House and 1896 wing and 1-7 Bowmont Gardens are currently (2004) mostly occupied by Learning and Teaching Scotland although they plan to vacate in the near future. The Higher Grade School is now Notre Dame Primary School.

This complicated and interrelated site is an important part of Glasgow's history of education and in particular the education of women.

Part of a B-group with 1-7 Bowmont Gardens, 74 Victoria Crescent Road Former Chapel, 66 Victoria Crescent Road Notre Dame Primary School including former Girls Training College.

External Links

Historic Environment Scotland Listing
Wikidata IDs Q77781119 Q77781124

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.