A postcard showing the back of the old Saracen's Head Inn on the Gallowgate c 1902. The archway on the left led into the building's central courtyard.
The inn was built in 1755 and partially converted to housing in the 1790s. The two women seen here washing linen on the pavement were presumably tenants and the photograph suggests that the building retained huge bolted window shutters from earlier times.
The hotel's old assembly hall was reportedly used for many years as a place of worship by religious sects, and then as a reading room. The building was demolished by Charles J Anderson in 1904 and replaced with a range of tenements.
Reference: Mitchell Library GC Postcards
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning
Keywords:
arches, archways, chapels, children, clothes washing, housework, inns, linen, pavements, postcards, pubs, reading rooms, religious sects, Saracen's Head Inn, taverns, washer women, washing tubs, window shutters, women