The Highland Light Infantry Monument
Kelvingrove Park Heritage Trail 17-20

 

Kelvingrove Park Heritage Trail includes 35 sites of interest.  If you visit the Kelvingrove Park and use the map available to download here it will take you approximately 1 hour 30 minutes to follow the Heritage trail from Kelvingrove Museum to The Kelvinway Bridge.
17. The Kelvinway Gate Piers at University Avenue

The Kelvinway Gate Piers at University Avenue  There are two pairs of 19th century, drum gatepiers guarding either end of Kelvin Way, one at the junction with University Avenue and the other at Sauchiehall Street.

The masonry columns at University Avenue comprise alternating bands of polished and vermiculated ashlar which rise into a curved and moulded stone cope supporting a decorative wroughtiron lamp bracket and lantern on a circular plinth.

The gate-piers are believed to have originally formed part of Woodlands Road entrance to Woodlands House.
Category C(S) Listed

If you are following the trail toilet facilities are available at this point - just along the Kelvin Way.


18. The Statue of Thomas Carlyle (1916)

The Statue of Thomas Carlyle  A wonderful granite monument by William Kellock Brown (1856-1934) in memory of the Scottish writer and historian, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), who is said to have rivalled Ruskin as the epitome of Victorian critical intelligence.

The monument comprises a rugged, largescale hewn torso and head which appears to grow out of a block of stone.

It was erected by public subscription in 1916. Brown was a native of Glasgow, trained at the School of Art and returned there later to lecture in modelling.
The Carlyle monument with its obvious source in Rodin remains unique among public memorials in Scotland, in that a vivid head emerges out of a large granite pillar: there is no modelling of torso and lower limbs.

No other public statue by Kellock Brown equals his Carlyle in originality of design. The park monument is also complemented by the portrait of Thomas Carlyle by James A McNeill Whistler, which is considered to be among the most important paintings in the British collection of Kelvingrove’s Art Gallery and Museum. A range of Kellock Brown’s sculpture work is held by Glasgow Museums, including the plaster sketch for the Carlyle statue.
Worthy of statutory listing


19. The Prince of Wales Bridge (1894-95)

The Prince of Wales Bridge  This red sandstone bridge features a single elliptical arch and carved masonry spandrels, with grey granite balustrade on a sandstone plinth.

Engineer, Alex B McDonald (City Engineer). Representative of Glasgow’s 19th century engineering achievements and one of a series of handsome bridges crossing the River Kelvin.
Category ‘B’ listed


20. The Highland Light Infantry Monument (1906)

The Highland Light Infantry Monument  The monument depicts a soldier or army scout of the HLI straddling a rocky eminence and is memorable both for his jaunty pose and for the attention given to the costume detail.

This freestone memorial by sculptor William Birnie Rhind (1853-1933) is the earliest war memorial in the Park and was erected to commemorate men of the Highland Light Infantry who fell in the South African ‘Boer’ War (1899-1902).

Possibly the most unrestrained of Birnie Rhind’s work, the lowest stage comprises loose boulders which graduate into a rock-faced ashlar ‘outcrop’ bearing commemorative inscriptions on the east and west sides, before rising again into more naturalistic rockwork.
The association with the Highland Light Infantry is meaningful as volunteer regiments drilled regularly in Kelvingrove Park into the early 20th century.
n.b. A further monument connecting Birnie Rhind’s work with Kelvingrove Park is the seated male figure of Science on the Art Gallery and Museum’s South front, West end.
Category 'B' Listed


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