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Miss Cranston's Lunch and Tea Rooms, Ingram Street

M179 Miss Cranston's Lunch and Tea Rooms, Ingram Street

Address: 205–217, Ingram Street, Glasgow G1 1DQ
Date: 1900–1; 1904–5; 1907–8; 1909–10; 1911; 1911–12
Client: Miss Cranston
Authorship: Authorship category 1 (Mackintosh) (Mackintosh)
1886
16 September: Miss Catherine (Kate) Cranston commences business at 205 Ingram Street. 1
1889
First appearance in the Glasgow Post Office Directory of 'C. Cranston, restaurateur' at 205 Ingram Street. 2
1895
First appearance in the Glasgow Post Office Directory of 'Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms' at 205 Ingram Street and 'Miss Cranston's Lunch Rooms' at 209. 3
1900
24 January: Mackintosh writes to Hermann Muthesius about his new commission from Miss Cranston. 4
19 April: Plans approved by Glasgow Dean of Guild Court for work at '209 etc Ingram Street'. 5
27 April: 'Operations begun' on site. 6
May: Successful contractors' estimates recorded in measurers', Danskin & Purdie's, 'cube book'. 7
12 July: Mackintosh writes to Muthesius that the Ingram Street work is not yet completed and that he and Margaret Macdonald are each working on a gesso panel for the tea room. 8
3 November – 27 December: The May Queen and Wassail gesso panels intended for the White Dining Room are shown at the Eighth Exhibtion of the Vienna Secession. Exhibits destined for Vienna left Glasgow in late September. 9
1901
10 January: Work signed off by Dean of Guild Court. 10
215 Ingram Street first appears in the Glasgow Post Office Directory as one of Miss Cranston's premises. 11
1904
5 May: Contractor tenders submitted for 'interior alterations'. 12
1905
14 February: Latest contractor payment for interior alterations. 13
1907
Contractor tenders throughout the year for the 'Oak Room'. 14
'Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms' are now 205–217 Ingram Street and 102 Miller Street; the lunch rooms continue to have a separate entry at 209 and 215. 15
1908
19 June: Latest contractor payment for the Oak Room. 16
1909
17 May: Earliest contractor tenders for alterations to the 'Ingram Street & Miller Street property'. 17
1910
June: Majority of contractors paid for alterations to Ingram Street and Miller Street property. 18
1911
8 May: Earliest contractor tender accepted for the 'Blue Room'. 19
26 October: Latest contractor payment for work on the Blue Room. 20
27 December: Contractor tender accepted for the 'Cloister Room'. 21
1912
Contractors paid for work on the Cloister Room. 22
1919
Miss Cranston hands over management of Ingram Street to Jessie Drummond, a former manager of her Buchanan Street branch. 23
1930
Ingram Street premises acquired by Coopers, a tea and coffee merchant. 24
1950
Glasgow Corporation purchases the former tea-room premises, fittings and furniture. 25
1971
Now operating in part as the 'Mackintosh Discount Store', the building is sold to the Stakis hotel company. Intact but heavily overpainted or hidden interiors are disassembled and removed to the care of the Glasgow Corporation planning department. 26
Stakis applies to convert the building into a hotel and submits drawings to the Dean of Guild Court. 27
1977
The interiors are transferred to the care of Glasgow Museums. 28
1992–2002
Conservation and restoration is carried out on some of the interiors, beginning with the White Dining Room, followed by the Blue or Chinese Room and the Cloister Room. 29
1996–7
Part of the White Dining Room is exhibited in Glasgow and the USA. 30
2000–1
Part of the White Dining Room is exhibited in Washington, D.C. 31
2006
New permanent displays in the refurbished Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery include parts of the White Dining Room, Oak Room and the Blue or Chinese Room.
2018
Oak Room reassembled as a long-term exhibit in the Scottish Design Galleries at V&A Dundee. 32

Notes:

1: Bailie, Wednesday 15 September 1886, p. 5; Perilla Kinchin, Miss Cranston, Edinburgh: NMS Publishing, 1999, p. 26.

2: Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1889–90, p. 207.

3: Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1895–6, p. 142.

4: Berlin, Werkbundarchiv, Museum der Dinge: Hermann Muthesius Estate, letter from Mackintosh to Hermann Muthesius, 24 January 1900.

5: Glasgow City Archives Collection: Glasgow Dean of Guild Court, Register of Inspections, D-OPW 25/2, p. 41.

6: Glasgow City Archives Collection: Glasgow Dean of Guild Court, Register of Inspections, D-OPW 25/2, p. 41.

7: J. M. Trushell, 'Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms: Cost Analyses' in Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society Newsletter, 67, Summer 1995, p. 4.

8: Berlin, Werkbundarchiv, Museum der Dinge: Hermann Muthesius Estate, letter from Mackintosh to Hermann Muthesius, 12 July 1900.

9: Vienna, Secession Archives: letter from Mackintosh to Franz Hancke, 5 October 1900, Inv. Nr. 25.3.1.6010.

10: Glasgow City Archives Collection: Glasgow Dean of Guild Court, Register of Inspections, D-OPW 25/2, p. 41.

11: Glasgow Post Office Directory 1901–2, p. 160.

12: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53062, p. 59.

13: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53062, p. 59.

14: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53062, p. 131.

15: Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1901–2, p. 189.

16: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: John Honeyman & Keppie job book, GLAHA 53062, p. 131.

17: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53063, p. 32.

18: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh, GLAHA 53063, p. 32.

19: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53063, p. 48.

20: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53063, p. 47.

21: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53063, p. 72.

22: The Hunterian, University of Glasgow: Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh job book, GLAHA 53063, p. 72.

23: Perilla Kinchin, Tea and Taste: The Glasgow Tearooms 1875–1975, Wendlebury, Oxon: White Cockade, 1991, p. 83.

24: Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings and Interior Designs, Moffat, Dumfriesshire: Cameron & Hollis, 4th edn, 2009, p. 97.

25: Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings and Interior Designs, Moffat, Dumfriesshire: Cameron & Hollis, 4th edn, 2009, p. 97; 239; Clare McGread, 'Glasgow School of Art and the Campaign to Save the Ingram Street Tea Rooms' in Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society Newsletter, 73, Summer 1998, pp. 6–7.

26: Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings and Interior Designs, Moffat, Dumfriesshire: Cameron & Hollis, 4th edn, 2009, p. 97.

27: See for example, Glasgow City Archives Collection: Dean of Guild Plans B4/11/1971/135.

28: Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings and Interior Designs, Moffat, Dumfriesshire: Cameron & Hollis, 4th edn, 2009, p. 98.

29: Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings and Interior Designs, Moffat, Dumfriesshire: Cameron & Hollis, 4th edn, 2009, p. 98; Alison Brown, 'The Conservation and Restoration of the Ingram Street Tea Rooms', Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society Newsletter, 83, Summer 2002, pp. 5–8.

30: Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings and Interior Designs, Moffat, Dumfriesshire: Cameron & Hollis, 4th edn, 2009, p. 98; Alison Brown, 'The Conservation and Restoration of the Ingram Street Tea Rooms', Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society Newsletter, 83, Summer 2002, pp. 5–8.

31: Roger Billcliffe, Charles Rennie Mackintosh: The Complete Furniture, Furniture Drawings and Interior Designs, Moffat, Dumfriesshire: Cameron & Hollis, 4th edn, 2009, p. 98; Alison Brown, 'The Conservation and Restoration of the Ingram Street Tea Rooms', Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society Newsletter, 83, Summer 2002, pp. 5–8.

32: Rachel Mapplebeck, 'Restoring a Mackintosh masterpiece', Art Quarterly, Autumn 2018, pp. 92–93.