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Alterations to Wellcroft, Helensburgh

M326 Alterations to Wellcroft, Helensburgh

Address: 80, John Street, Helensburgh G84 9JZ
Date: 1913
Client: John Rennie
Authorship: Authorship category 4 (Office) (Office)

Colour photograph of portrait of John Rennie by Bessie MacNicol

Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh made minor alterations to this large yellow sandstone villa, which may have been for a new or refurbished bathroom.

The client, John Rennie (c.1857–1937) was a retired tea merchant, keen traveller, mountaineer and from the 1920s a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He was also a friend of Glasgow physician and artist Alexander Frew and his wife, artist Bessie MacNicol, who were friends of John Keppie. MacNicol's portrait of Rennie was exhibited at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts in 1901. 1

Authorship: This is one of over 270 jobs carried out in the office of John Honeyman & Keppie (Honeyman, Keppie & Mackintosh from 1901) during Mackintosh's time there. Mackintosh undoubtedly worked on many of these, but there is no specific evidence for his involvement in this case.

Alternative addresses:
John Street Upper

Cost from office job book: £177 15s 1d

Status: Standing building

Current use: Residential (2014)

Listing category: B: 'Listed as '80 John Street with boundary walls and gatepiers'

Historic Scotland/HB Number: 34799

RCAHMS Site Number: NS28SE 140

Grid Reference: NS 29495 83117

GPS coordinates: lat = 56.010551, lng = -4.73651   (Map)

Notes:

1: Ailsa Tanner, Bessie MacNicol New Woman, privately published, 1998, pp. 76–7; information supplied by descendents in Scotland and Australia by email 23–30 October 2012; 1901 list of members of members of The Climbers' Club, http://www.climbers-club.co.uk/journal/original/1901-No11-p140-147.pdf [accessed 25 October 2012; list of members deceased since previous annual meeting included in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Hundred and Fifty-Eighth Session, 1937–8, http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_072/72_001_022.pdf [accessed 25 October 2012]; birth and death records, www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk [accessed 25 October 2012].