People's Palace

🚨Funding announcement 🚨

We are delighted to share that the People’s Palace has been awarded a grant through the Art Fund Reimagine programme! ⭐
We are thrilled to be one of the 20 museums receiving a grant to support our future work.
Find out more ⤵️

https://www.artfund.org/professional/news-and-insights/art-fund-reimagine-grants?utm_source=members.parliament.uk&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=reimagine+2024+announcement&utm_content=john+grady

And just like that, the People’s Palace is now closed for our major refurbishment. 🎊

We’ll be back soon, with a revitalised People’s Palace and Winter Gardens, a place by people, for people, with people, and look forward to welcoming you all back✨

Thank you to everyone who made it along to celebrate our wonderful museum over the last few weeks, with special thanks to the Friends of People's Palace Winter Gardens & Glasgow Green for organising such a wonderful closing event yesterday and to the choir from St Denis’s Primary School in Dennistoun and the St Francis Pipe Band for their fantastic performances. But most of all we want to thank you, the people who love and visit the People’s Palace. 🎉

Stay tuned here for our project updates. Watch this space! ✨

Looking for FREE Easter holiday fun? 🎉

Then look no further than the People’s Palace! 🌼

Check out what’s on ⤵️

🎖️ WW2 object handling (4 April)

🥫 Imaginative play session (5 April)

🏛️ Walking tour (9 April)

🖼️ Painting talk with curator (9 April)

🖐 ️Old household object handling (11 April)

🖼️ Painting talk with curator (12 April)

🎨 Crafting fun (13 April)

📖 Storytelling (13 April)

Plan your visit ⤵️

glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/peoples-palace

We will be operating our normal hours over the Spring Holiday (Easter) weekend and will be open as usual. Come and pay us a visit! 🌻

📅Good Friday 29 March – usual hours
📅Saturday 30 March – usual hours
📅Sunday 31 March – usual hours
📅Easter Monday 1 April – usual hours

Plan your visit and check out all of our upcoming FREE events before we close for our exciting refurb! ⤵️

https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/venues/peoples-palace

🍌 Last chance to see us before the refurb (it’s gonna be a Big Yin)!

Find out more ⤵️

https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/peoples-palace

Billy Connolly's banana boots, made by Edmund Smith, Scottish
© CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection

Billy Connolly

Join us this Sunday 3 March, 1.30-4pm for some weekend crafting fun ✂️🖌️

It feels like it has been a long, cold winter, so come along and take inspiration from the objects decorated with flowers, to design your own little piece of spring 🌼

The amazing vase in the picture was made by Meissen, the oldest porcelain manufacturer in Europe.

This free session is suitable for families and is drop-in.

📢 Exciting news just in 📢

The countdown to our major refurbishment is on!

You have until Sunday 14 April to visit us one last time to enjoy the many treasures on display before we close the doors until 2027. Thanks to recent funding secured from The National Lottery Heritage Fund Scotland, the next phase of this exciting project can begin, creating a reimagined and restored museum and glasshouse.

Come and celebrate Glasgow’s culture with us at the People’s Palace.

More info ⬇️
glasgowlife.org.uk/museums/peoples-palace

Standing at the highest point of the People's Palace is the sculpture of a woman holding her right arm high with a bronze torch in her right hand, a laurel branch cradled in her left arm and a cornucopia at her feet.
She represents progress.
Seated on either side of her are two women. To the left representing science with globe and compass, to the right representing the arts with books.

Along the top floor of the Peoples Palace are six sandstone figures each with their own markers for representation. Shipbuilding is represented with model boat.
Mathematical Science with dividers and open book.
Sculpture with figurine.
Painting with palette and brush.
Engineering with crown wheel and pulley.
Textile industry with distaff.

Standing on top of the Peoples Palace sandstone north facing front are allegorical figures made by Glasgow sculptor William Kellock Brown.
Kellock Brown's work can be seen across Scotland and throughout Glasgow on district libraries, in Glasgow Necropolis and at Kelvingrove museum, just to name a few.
He trained and taught at the Glasgow School of Art, making work between the late 1800's and early 1900's.
These beautiful figures represent significant industries and values of life in Glasgow at the time, more to follow...

It's impossible to describe the People's Palace without mentioning its warm red sandstone. The use of red sandstone was really a sign of contemporary times in late 1800's Glasgow. The completion of a railway line from Carlisle to Glasgow made it possible for this stone to travel up from the Locharbriggs Quarries in Dumfriesshire, about 70 miles south of Glasgow, all the way to Glasgow Green. Perhaps the oldest thing about the People's Palace is the red sandstone itself, formed over 270 million years ago, dating to back to the Permian period, red in colour due to its rich iron content.

The architect of the People's Palace was Stirling born Glasgow University alumni Alexander Beith McDonald. During his working life A. B. McDonald was involved in projects across Glasgow including Bellahouston Park and Govanhill Baths. In it's first incarnation the top floor of the People's Palace was allocated as a picture gallery. The many beautiful French Renaissance style windows proved to be inappropriate for the space and 6 of them where bricked up to stifle some of the glare.

When you visit the People's Palace one of the first things to greet you is this poem by A. Jamieson, sitting under the People's Palace middle archway, topped with the Glasgow City Crest. 😀

Wishing everyone a great Burns night in celebration of Scotlands national Bard.
Rabbie Burns has inspired many, including Jimmy Reid who in the portrait of his life, painted by Barry Atherton, holds a picture of the poet front and centre in his left hand. ☺️

Up in the Morning Early
by Robert Burns

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shrill’s I hear the blast,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

The birds sit chittering in the thorn,
A’ day they fare but sparely;
And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn,
I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

Happy People's Palace 126th Anniversary!
Back at the opening in 1898, of this, the first of Glasgow's purpose built museums, the Earl of Rosebury named it 'a place of pleasure and imagination around which the people may place their affection and which may give them a home on which their memory may rest'.
Here's to many more to come!

Glasgwegian artist and writer Alasdair Gray has been part of the People's Palace legacy since 1977. Still on diplay here are his portraits of MP Margo MacDonald, Councillor Ian Gourley and MP Teddy Taylor, and successful Hotelier Reo Stakis. To make these pieces Alasdair worked in pen, ink, acrylic and collage.

For 126 years the People's Palace and Winter Gardens has been one of Glasgow’s most treasured spaces. The has today announced substantial support that paves the way to a wider £7.5million award.

This major milestone allows the transformational project to restore, re-imagine, and improve this hugely valuable cultural and historical asset to progress.

This crucial funding is wonderful news. It lets Glasgow Life engage with more communities about the project, so every aspect is informed by their views.

This investment will focus on making the building more accessible, improving its environmental sustainability, and making sure it’s here for generations to come.

For more details visit our website ⤵️

https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/news/people-s-palace-and-winter-gardens-secures-initial-funding-from-the-national-lottery-heritage-fund-that-paves-the-way-to-7-5-million

Looking for a place to unwind and relax while walking in Glasgow Green? Our wee People's Palace Cafe sits at the front of the building looking out onto the Green, the Templeton Building and the Douton Fountain. Takeaway available until 4pm. Entertainment via the Glasgow Green Wildlife if you are lucky! ☺️

It's gorgeous, it's chilly, it's frost-covered ground and city lights.
Glasgow Green in a cold snap is beautiful, and we're here with a bit of much-needed warmth.
The cafe here at the People's Palace is open till 4 pm every day with yummy soup, coffee and cake.
Today it's Highland Vegetable ☺️

These winter mornings sure are chilly, but there's something pretty spectacular about January in Glasgow before the sun comes up.
Glasgow Green and the city beyond is a sight to behold from our wee viewpoint here at the People's Palace.

We've had lots of family visits over the seasonal break and have loved hearing your stories of gatherings, treats, and the excitement of new curiosities to play with!
We've got a great wee collection of vintage toys here at the People's Palace, including some classic treasures that summon many a memory. Who's got a favourite? We know we do! ☺️