Words by: Gemma Sawyer (she/her)
Reckoning with the past does not have to detract from a building’s fleeting external beauty, but it serves as a reminder that with beauty, not everything is always as it seems.
We know how the saying goes: you can’t judge a book by its cover. In order to get to the real story, layers must be peeled away – information delved into. Buildings are no different. What may be a stunning church spire or an avant-garde arch when you first lay eyes on it could reveal a deeper history when closely examined. Glasgow, Scotland, and the world at large has structures which we marvel at. But, what does it mean to admire these buildings, knowing some of the most visually impressive ones have bloody pasts? Is it possible and ethical to admire architecture knowing what horrors took place in order for them to be constructed?
While it is not possible to understand the history of every building that one encounters, there is a high chance that many buildings in Scotland, and the UK, have legacies tied to slavery, whether directly or indirectly.
Not far from my hometown of Bonyrigg, there is an old stately home called Mavisbank House, an imposing ruin of what was once a great mansion. Instead of people, plants now call these remains home, ivy crawling up the stone walls which are tinged with green from moss. Mavisbank was designed by Sir John Clerk of Penicuik alongside William Adam, the same man believed to have drawn up the original plans for Pollock House in Glasgow. Whilst on a walk through the valley surrounding the now derelict stately home, a man in a car pulled up to me, asking for directions to Mavisbank. I explained to him how to get there, and we talked for a bit. He explained to me that he was from Jamaica and he and his family had ties to the mansion when it was still a plantation. This was my first instance of awareness of the direct legacy this local relic had to a dark time in Scotland’s past. Mavisbank House serves as a reminder of just how pervasive and far reaching the slave trade and colonialism were. The focus of the British Empire usually lies with England, and Scotland’s role is not talked about enough. Glasgow, however, was once the second most important city in the Empire. Scotland cannot be left out of the conversation.
It is difficult to find information online relating to Mavisbank House, and information confirming its direct link to plantations is not widely available. However, given the time period of the house’s construction, it is absolutely believable that this house had direct links to plantations in the Caribbean. Scotland successfully settled the Darien Gap at the end of the 17th century between Panama and Colombia, and Sir John Clerk, the man for whom Mavisbank was built, composed a song celebrating this settlement.
These buildings and historic structures are here to stay. So, how do we reconcile their beauty and brutality at the same time? The act of ignoring history, no matter how ugly, helps nobody. In fact, erasing the history of these beautiful buildings due to their unsavoury history only further contributes to a lack of awareness of Scotland and Glasgow’s role in the slave trade. Scotland’s colonial ties are often forgotten in our country’s history – stories are left untold, often deliberately so. It is comforting to think of the harm the British Empire caused as something not part of our past, and that Scotland has nothing to reckon with. I would not have come to be aware of the history of Mavisbank had I not encountered the man from Jamaica by chance. Brushing the unfavourable history to one side only further creates a culture of silence around our country’s crimes of the past, obscuring the larger picture and distorting our collective memories. Reality cannot be ignored, no matter how uncomfortable it is. The least we can do is learn from the past to prevent similar situations in the future. How can this be done if we pretend we are innocent?
We should be engaging more critically in our appreciation and love for these buildings, asking ourselves, ‘Is there more to this than meets the eye?’. If the goal is to seek the truth about these historic creations, and to see the good, the bad and the ugly, it is paramount that we look at them not just as they are at face value, but that we also remember their story of how they came to be. That origin story may not match with the surface level beauty we see. After all, a book cannot be judged by its cover. Reckoning with the past does not have to detract from a building’s fleeting external beauty, but it serves as a reminder that with beauty, not everything is always as it seems.
