Pollok House
Encyclopedia
Pollok Country Park
Pollok Country Park is a large country park located in Pollok, south Glasgow. Prior to the building of the M77 motorway it was the largest urban green space in Europe. In 2007 it was named the best park in Britain...
, Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
The house - built in 1752 and designed by William Adam - was gifted to the City of Glasgow in 1966 by Dame Anne Maxwell Macdonald, whose family had owned the estate for almost 700 years. It is now managed by the National Trust for Scotland
National Trust for Scotland
The National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, commonly known as the National Trust for Scotland describes itself as the conservation charity that protects and promotes Scotland's natural and cultural heritage for present and future generations to...
and is open to the public.
Displayed within the Pollok House is a large, private collection of Spanish paintings, including works by El Greco
El Greco
El Greco was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" was a nickname, a reference to his ethnic Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος .El Greco was born on Crete, which was at...
, Francisco Goya
Francisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...
. There are also paintings by William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, as well as glass, silverware, porcelain and antique furniture. The house also features servants' quarters downstairs (accessible free of charge), which include two shops and a restaurant.
The house also has an extensive garden, boasting a collection of over 1,000 species of rhododendron
Rhododendron
Rhododendron is a genus of over 1 000 species of woody plants in the heath family, most with showy flowers...
s.