R D Mainds' watercolour sketch shows 105 High Street, 1891. The ramshackle timber walls of No 101, a building that was the subject of another Mainds sketch, is on the far right.
Few if any timber buildings were erected in central Glasgow after the city's second great fire of 1677, which prompted the town council to require that houses be built "from heid to foot, back and foir" of stone. Most of those that survived into the 19th century had become run-down and lacking in the most basic amenities, as is suggested in this view.
Reference: Sp Coll Bh12-x.3
Glasgow University Library, Special Collections
Keywords:
backcourts, closes, fires, slum clearance, slums, tenements, timber houses, wooden clapperboard