Glasgow museums

Glasgow has more museums than we had time to see, but the two we did visit were very enjoyable and offered an insight into Glasgow life in years gone by.

The Riverside Museum, on the banks of the River Clyde, is a fantastic modern building that looked amazing upon arrival on a sunny June morning. It’s the newest of Glasgow’s many museums (it opened in 2011) and last year it won the European Museum of the Year award.

Described as “Scotland’s museum of transport and travel”, the museum houses exhibits of all types of transport, from the wall of cars to Glasgow police cars, caravans and bikes. The best bit for me though was the original trams and a reconstruction of a 1900s Glasgow street and subway. It’s great to wander down a street that looks very much like one your ancestors would have walked down!

After a couple of hours at The Riverside Museum, we went to The People’s Palace Museum, situated in Glasgow Green – Glasgow’s oldest park. The People’s Palace was originally built as a cultural centre for the people of Glasgow’s industrial East End and it’s a magnificent building, with a huge fountain outside that was first unveiled at the Glasgow Expire Exhibition in 1888.

The People’s Palace Museum tells the story of Glasgow and its people and it was a great place to find out more about how ordinary Glaswegians have lived throughout history.The “Doon the Watter” exhibition about Glaswegians descending en masse to the West Coast seaside towns was fun and the recreation of life in a Glasgow Tenement in “The Single End” brought home how cramped the living conditions would have been.

Like all of Glasgow’s museums, the two we visited were free. Worth a visit if you’re in Glasgow and want to know more about the lives of your Glaswegian ancestors!

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