Burrell Collection

Location: Pollok Country Park, 2060 Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow G43 1AT
Opening times: Monday to Thursday and Saturday 10am to 5pm, Friday & Sunday 11am to 5pm
Entry: Free
Access: Onsite parking £5.00 for 4 hours, £10.00 all day

The Burrell in question is shipping magnate William Burrell (1861 – 1958), who became interested in art as a boy and used his wealth to build up a humongous collection of objects d’, over 9,000 to be precise, culled from over six millennia. Burrell ‘knew his stuff’ and was not merely a rich idler snapping up what was in vogue just because he could, so the size and eclecticism of his collection, recognised as one of the greatest amassed by an individual, is unified by the quality of its content.

In 1944 he and his wife Constance gifted the entire collection to Glasgow for the enjoyment of its people, although this gift came with some conditions attached. One was that the collection be housed in a purpose-built venue, but meeting this stipulation was made easier by Burrell’s additional gift of £450,000 towards construction of said venue. The condition that the venue be “within four miles of Killearn, Stirlingshire, and not less than sixteen miles from Glasgow Royal exchange” was somewhat harder to comply with. Its eventual location only became possible when Anne Maxwell Macdonald gifted Pollok House and its surrounding lands to Glasgow in 1966. This was no place near Killearn and only about three miles from Glasgow city centre, but was considered sufficiently rural enough to meet the ‘spirit’ of Burrell’s request.

*The Burrell Collection’s state-of-the-art home.*

The building itself is recognised as a work of art in its own right, having won numerous architecture and design awards following both its 1983 opening and its 2022 refurbishment. The structure is L-shaped, with most of it comprising floor to roof glass panels supported by wooden beams to let in as much natural light as possible, with the more light-sensitive exhibits enclosed in inner galleries. Contrasting this is the toe of the small section, which is red bricked and window-less and looks like the gable end of a tenement. Visitors enter via a fourteenth century archway that originally belonged to Hornby Castle in Yorkshire, which was itself part of Burrell’s collection (the arch, not the castle); various remnants of other ancient buildings are incorporated throughout the modern structure.

*The Burrell’s spacious and airy interior.*

The Burrell Collection has several themed galleries devoted to specific areas such as carpets, tapestries, and stained glass, but my favourite was the North Gallery, which takes up a good chunk of the ground floor and is the museum’s largest. This contains a magnificent mishmash of curios and is testament to Burrell’s wide and eclectic tastes. I spent a very pleasant afternoon browsing here with no idea what I must discover next, as within the space of a couple of display cases one can be whisked from ancient Egypt to mediaeval church statuary to the music halls of London at the turn of the twentieth century. Rather than attempt to describe everything, the pictures accompanying this entry will hopefully give prospective visitors a taster.

This angel from St. Michael’s Church (1400 – 1500) in Aughton, Lancashire greets the visitor upon entering the North Gallery. The plaque that gave me this information also asks, “Can you copy the strange look on this angel’s face?” I passed. The last time I got hit with such a strange request we were in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum in Orlando, Florida. There was a section on the rural English tradition of gurning, and then a convenient mirror with a sign inviting us to give gurning a go. We did, only to find out later that it was a one-way mirror, and visitors further into the exhibition were having a right old hoot at our expense.

*This Assyrian archer dates from the sixth century BCE and is believed to have come from a palace in Nineveh in northern Iraq*.

*One guys looks as if he is flipping the bird while the other shoots the crow.*

The Burrell Collection features some excellent interpretive material, including a display explaining why the central nun in this group of five is believed to be a representation of St. Walpurga. In a nutshell, she is often depicted carrying a book and a vial of oil just like this lady, and is usually carrying a staff. While that is missing, the positioning of her right hand makes it obvious she once held one. St. Walpurga is largely forgotten in England where she was born, but she is remembered in several European countries with celebrations on Walpurgisnacht, the eve of her feast day on 1 May.

*Auguste Rodin’s most famous sculpture is* The Thinker, perhaps not least because he made many versions of it. This one was cast in 1902 and bought by Burrell twenty years later. Rodin’s fingerprints are revealed upon closer inspection.

*Burrell had a particular liking for the French Impressionists and bought over twenty works by Edgar Degas, including his 1886 pastel drawing* Jockeys in the Rain.

Lilian Shelley (1920) by Jacob Epstein. Shelley was an artists’ model and music hall performer in the 1910s and 1920s. She is believed to have committed suicide in the 1930s. Epstein was one of the great sculptors of the 20th century, his iconic works including Oscar Wilde’s tomb in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, and St. Michael’s Victory Over the Devil *on Coventry Cathedral.*

I was so mesmerised by the wall in this gallery I nearly forgot to look at the paintings.

Destination or Diversion?

A world-class art collection like Burrell’s can only be classed as a destination, but while in Pollok Country Park why not have a wander. As Glasgow’s biggest park it has many a trail or woodland walk, and there is also its famous herd of highland cattle. Unfortunately, Pollok House is closed until late 2025 or early 2026, but its gardens remain open to the public.

Destination or Diversion?

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