30 November: Glasgow

On St Andrew's Day, here are 10 facts about Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland (by population anyway: in 2021 the population is 591,000 making it the seventh most populated city in the United Kingdom, while Edinburgh comes ninth with 465,000. In terms of area, Edinburgh is bigger, covering 102 square miles compared to Glasgow’s 68. Glasgow is the fifth most-visited city in the United Kingdom).

1. St Andrew may be the patron saint of Scotland, but it's two other saints whose remains lie in Glasgow. One is St Mungo (also called Kentigern), who is responsible for there being a city in this location at all. The patron saint of Salmon established a church where Glasgow Cathedral now stands and when he died was buried there. The church became an important destination for pilgrims and in turn, traders flocked there to sell their wares to the visitors. The cathedral was built on the site of the old church in 1197 and is the oldest surviving cathedral on the Scottish mainland. The other is St Valentine, whose forearm is said to lie in the Church of Blessed St John Duns Scotus. The church is home to a Franciscan order of monks who decorate the relics with flowers and pray for the world's lovers every year on the 14th of February.
2. Glasgow’s City Chambers is known for its staggering marble staircase, which forms the centrepiece of the building and is the largest of its kind in Europe. The building was constructed using more marble than the Vatican, Carrera stone originally imported from Italy. The chambers were designed by the architect William Young. It even resembles the Vatican so much that it gets used as a film location – presumably cheaper and less of a hassle than getting permission to film in the Vatican itself.
3. The name Glasgow means "green hollow" in Gaelic (which is still spoken in Glasgow, with a percentage of speakers second only to Inverness). This is reflected in the city's modern day nickname of "Dear Green Place".
4. Glasgow has the only underground railway in Scotland which is the third oldest in the world. Only London and Budapest have older ones. Although Glasgow is called Dear Green Place, the underground trains are not green, but Orange, leading to the system being nicknamed "The Clockwork Orange".
5. There are some tree stumps in Glasgow which are twice as old as the Dinosaurs. They were discovered in 1887 when an old quarry was being turned into a park. The eleven stumps still remain in Victoria Park to this day. These fossilised tree stumps date to the Carboniferous Period, making them 330 million years old, and it's thought they were Lepidodendron trees. These trees grew in a swamp-like environment back when Scotland’s climate was hot and tropical.
6. Glasgow is also home to the oldest surviving music hall in the world, The Britannia Panopticon. The venue was founded in 1857 and there were once shows four times a day, playing to an audience of 1,500. If you were good, you might become world famous, as Stan Laurel did. If you were bad, the audience would throw things at you, including shipyard rivets, rotten turnips and horse manure.
7. There are numerous museums in Glasgow of which I will mention two. Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum was built between 1888 and 1901 and is one of the most visited attractions in the city. There's an urban myth that it was built back to front by mistake and the architect was so upset by that that he committed suicide by throwing himself off one of the towers. In fact, the museum was supposed to be facing that way: it was designed to face into the park to coincide with the 1901 Glasgow International Exhibition. One of its most famous exhibits is a stuffed elephant called Sir Roger which lived in a Glasgow zoo in the late 1800s but had to be put down at the age of 27 after he became too aggressive. There's also the The Hunterian Museum, based within Glasgow University and first opened in 1807, which makes it Scotland's oldest public museum. It's notable exhibit is the world's first ultrasound machine dating back to the 1950s.
8. Chicken tikka masala may have originated in Glasgow rather than India. According to legend, British Bangladeshi chef Ali Ahmed Aslam served a Curry to a customer who complained it was too dry. Keen to please his customer, Ali added some tinned tomato soup to the dish, turning it into a creamy, spicy curry. The customer and his friends loved it, and the chicken tikka masala was born.
9. People in Glasgow love their Football. One of the biggest local rivalries in the sport is between Celtic and Rangers. That has a religious origin, since over a century ago Celtic attracted people from East Glasgow who were mostly Catholic, and Rangers drew crowds from West Glasgow who were mostly Protestant. Glasgow was also the venue for the first international football match, which was played in Partick in 1872 between Scotland and England. The match took place at the West of Scotland Cricket Club and was a 0-0 draw.
10. Glasgow is also home to the longest bar in Europe. This is the Victorian Horseshoe bar Drury Street, which is 104 feet and 3 inches long.

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