Willow Tea Rooms, 217 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

Willow Tea Rooms, 217 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald in 1903, the Willow Tea Rooms represent an outstanding example of an artistic Glasgow tea room entirely conceived by these two designers. The building is a three-bay, four-storey structure over basement, originally constructed as part of a row of sandstone tenements in the mid-1860s. Mackintosh and Macdonald retained the structural shell but entirely remodelled both the interior and exterior, creating a new tea room for businesswoman Catherine Cranston. The building has recently undergone major refurbishment to reinstate Mackintosh's original design scheme and now functions as a tea room, internally linked with the adjoining property at 211 Sauchiehall Street, which contains additional facilities (2018).

The stripped-back stuccoed finish of the front (north) elevation stands in sharp contrast to the adjacent buildings. It is divided into two sections by a simple projecting stringcourse over the first floor window. The three bays of the upper floors feature a shallow bow inserted to the left bay, with deeply recessed windows.

On the lower floors Mackintosh created an entirely new design, reinstated in 2018. The first floor is emphasised by a shallow curve and a bowed window of tall, narrow leaded lights with a leaf-shaped motif, spanning three bays and flanked by metalwork signs. The ground floor shopfront is set back with a door and tall narrow leaded lights over a stuccoed stall riser. Above this is a deep and continuous transom of small rectangular glass panels featuring two large metalwork hoops. The elevation is framed by strips of Viennese squares and topped by a deep, unmoulded projecting cornice. The roof is slated and pitched with shared chimneystacks.

The rear (south) elevation faces Sauchiehall Lane. The upper floors comprise walls of stugged and snecked rubble sandstone, unaltered by Mackintosh. The ground floor is abutted by a one-and-a-half-storey addition over a basement, thought to have been added in the 1890s and partially altered by Mackintosh in an Arts and Crafts idiom. The walls are roughcast. The slated and hipped roof is partially glazed with a tall and battered chimneystack at the wallhead. There are four leaded glass windows; the two at gallery level are bowed, emulating the first floor window of the main elevation.

Mackintosh and Macdonald were jointly responsible for the design of every interior element, from wall murals and light fittings to gesso panels, chairs, upholstery, cutlery and even the waitresses' uniforms. The interior has been subject to substantial alteration and refurbishment over the last century, with much original fabric lost or held in museums and private collections. In 2018, a large-scale restoration programme reinstated the interior layout and decorative scheme of Mackintosh's original design, creating replicas of lost pieces as close to the original designs as possible.

The remodelled interior originally contained three tea rooms on the ground floor: a bright and light-coloured front room, a darker back room, and a light and airy gallery above, top-lit and featuring tree-like supporting columns. These three spaces open to each other, with subdivision created through structural elements, openwork screens, decorative balustrades and changes in colour, decoration and furniture.

The exclusive Salon De Luxe occupies the front of the first floor. It features a barrel vaulted ceiling richly decorated with two replica chandeliers of coloured solid-glass drops, high-backed silver chairs, purple velvet and silk upholstery, ornate leaded glass doors and a dado lined with leaded mirrored glass. The focal point is a replica of Margaret Macdonald's gesso panel.

The second floor originally contained a billiards room at the front, with a smoking room and lavatories at the rear. Mackintosh designed the billiard table, timber panelling and banquettes, all now gone (2018). The third floor layout was not altered by Mackintosh but has since been remodelled. The basement originally housed the kitchen, stores and staff lavatories. Mackintosh converted it into an additional tea room known as the 'Dug Out' in 1917, though no trace of this scheme remains and the basement has been remodelled (2018).