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The Glasgow Boys at Knockderry House

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Late last year, the BBC approached Knockderry House to be the location for a documentary on the ‘Lives of the Glasgow Boys’ to tie in with the wonderful exhibition that is currently running at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, in Glasgow.

The documentary is presented by Muriel Gray who tells the story of the Glasgow Boys, a group of late 19th century painters who put Glasgow on the art world map. The film is focuses mainly on just four of the Boys – John Lavery, James Guthrie, George Henry and EA Hornel – and Gray examines their masterpieces in detail and charts their shifting friendships.

postcardKnockderry House circa 1901 as it was at the time of the Glasgow Boys

Muriel travels throughout Scotland and northern France to uncover the sources of their inspiration and show just how radical their paintings were and visits many of the locations of their paintings including Helensburgh.

Lavery lived in Helensburgh for a while and painted a number of paintings of the town.  Guthrie too was well known in the town as he was often a guest of one of his patrons and dentist, who lived there.  As a footnote Guthrie’s son – Guthrie Jnr has some extremely fine stained glass in Knockderry’s Dining Room.

The documentary will be shown on Thursday 3rd June 2010 at 9pm on BBC Two (Scotland only).  A BBC webpage has further details on The Glasgow Boys.

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In Celebration of Mothers

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Like your wife’s birthday and ‘the anniversary’, Mother’s Day is one of those dates that for a truly peaceful life is best not forgotten. So even though it is a busy time for us at Knockderry House with many families taking their mums out for a lovely lunch to say thank you, we all make sure that we have the flowers organised well in advance. But what is the history behind the tradition?

Many see it as a recent rather commercialised festival imported from the United States, where the tradition to celebrate Mother’s Day has become the most popular day of the year to dine whilst telephone companies record their highest traffic.

However, it is a tradition that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans who celebrated with a Spring festival dedicated to Cybele, a mother goddess, presumably including a trip to the Coliseum to watch a few guys who’d forgotten their anniversary, Valentine’s Day, the birthday and Mother’s Day (The Grand Slam) being thrown to the lions or in later days being dragged round IKEA behind a chariot – TWICE!

Even early Christians, the ones who remembered, celebrated a Mother’s Day of sorts during Lent in honour of the Virgin Mary;  eventually, the holiday was expanded to include all mothers. Some however, believe that Mother’s Day was so named as people returned to their home or “mother” church at least once a year.  The same opportunities for holidays did not exist as they do now, but like today, children often worked away from home so this became a time for family reunions.

It was therefore, the reference to the “Mother” church which led to the term ‘Mothering Sunday’ which in turn led to the tradition of children, visiting their mother and family with gifts and a special fruit cake or fruit-filled pastry called a simnel.

These days, Mother’s Day is celebrated all over the world and although for  many the church connection has been lost, it is still a special day on which to say thanks to our mums and the chance to express both love and thanks for all that they have given us.  As long as you remember of course……otherwise it’s off to the Coliseum or even worse…..

From all at Knockderry House, we wish you a Happy Mothers Day.

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Decorating and Digging up the History

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

With the end of the season approaching we are taking the annual opportunity to carry out a few repairs and offer the building a bit of tender loving care to see it through another winter.  Since taking over the hotel 8 yrs ago we have redecorated, or in some cases made wholesale renovations too, all the rooms at least once – so it is with an increasing awareness of the passage of time that I realise we are about to redecorate one of our principle rooms for the third time.

The room was once the dressing room for the master bedroom and on turning the home to a hotel in the 60s, it had been foolishly hacked about leaving most of the orginal carvings boarded up, cut out or given a lovely dash of magnolia gloss.  Worse – the bathroom could not be reached from the bedroom but only from the corridor, leaving many embarrassed guests no choice but to appear in the lounge bar clad in nothing but a very small towel in order to retrieve a spare key.

Decoration revealed these treasures and the original Leiper panelling hiding behind the paint. Subsequent revelations included samples of the original wallpaper and evidence of Leiper ‘built’ in wardrobes.  Interestingly we never did find a fireplace in the room – which would have necessitated some very hasty dressing in the winter months.

Fortunately modern central heating is now fully installed so the room with its new four poster bed and carpets will be significantly more comfortable for future guests than for the poor Victorian gentleman who first stayed there.

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Autumn at Knockderry House

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Why does nobody believe me when I tell them what beautiful weather we are having this autumn at Knockderry House?  Granted it’s a wee bit late and we can never guarantee it but it just makes the gift of the late autumnal sun all the more precious.  The most sceptical are often expatriate Scots,  brothers and sisters, friends and ex-colleagues grinding away ‘down south’ to the sound of passing traffic, who chortle doubtfully when I tell them of the stunning blue skies and golden hues that are delighting us at the moment.

So we learn to make jokes about our weather as we try to answer with humour the perennial questions, “Does it ever stop raining?” “Does the mist ever rise?” “How do you cope during the winter with all the snow?”, but in reality – when the clouds part and the rain drifts away – we are left with the most beautiful countryside imaginable. And the rain? Well we have it to thank for the hundreds of thousands of acres of lush verdant woodland, our rivers and burns, cascading waterfalls and fertile glens feeding contented, fattened cattle.

The rain will come – but for now, the colours are spectacular everywhere you look. So as I look out across the deep blue of Loch Long to the hills of Arrochar and beyond, the richness and variety of the colours of so many different trees turning a myriad of autumnal shades, I give thanks for the rain that has passed and look forward to the year to come.

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