A Glasgow tenement is a stone building of flats, usually three to five storeys high, whose homes share a common entrance and stair known as a ‘close’. Built in their thousands to house the city’s booming Victorian population, tenements of blond and red sandstone remain the most characteristic buildings in Glasgow. There is more on their story on our tenement tradition page.

The close, the flat and the back court

The heart of a tenement is the close, the shared passage and staircase that leads to the flats and out to the back court behind. The flats themselves ranged enormously. At the smallest was the ‘single end’, a single room that served as kitchen, bedroom and living room all at once; then the ‘room and kitchen’ of two rooms; and, in the grander buildings, homes of four or five rooms. In the poorer blocks a single toilet on the stair landing was shared between several families.

Blond stone and red

The older tenements were built from the honey-blond sandstone quarried close to the city. When those local supplies began to run short in the 1890s, builders turned to the warm red sandstone of Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire, which is why so many later tenements are red. For a century both colours were hidden beneath a black crust of soot, until the air cleaned and the stone was scrubbed back to life. It is a defining note of Glasgow’s architecture.

The wally close

The finest touch a tenement could boast was a ‘wally close’, its lower walls lined with glazed ceramic tiles, often in rich greens and creams. ‘Wally’ is an old Scots word for china or porcelain, and a wally close marked a better address, most famously in Hyndland and the West End. Such closes were a world away from the crowded single ends of the poorer neighbourhoods.

From slum to sought-after

Not every tenement was so comfortable. The overcrowded closes of the old town and the Gorbals were among the worst slums in Europe, a world captured in the novel behind the phrase ‘no mean city’. Much of that housing was swept away in the twentieth-century slum clearances and replaced by high-rise flats, a change that was often later regretted. From the 1970s the surviving tenements were rescued and restored, and today they are among the most sought-after homes in the city.

What is a ‘single end’?

A single end was a one-room tenement flat that served as kitchen, bedroom and living room combined. Though meant for one person or a couple, whole families often lived in one.

What is a wally close?

A wally close is a tenement close whose lower walls are lined with glazed ceramic tiles. ‘Wally’ is an old Scots word for china, and such a close marked a better-quality building.

Why are Glasgow tenements different colours?

The older tenements used local blond sandstone. From the 1890s, when that ran short, builders used red sandstone from Ayrshire and Dumfriesshire instead, which is why later tenements are red.