George Square is the heart of Glasgow because it is the city’s principal civic square, the ceremonial and gathering centre of Glasgow for more than two centuries. Laid out in 1781 and dominated by the magnificent City Chambers, it is ringed by statues of the great and the famous, and has been the stage for the city’s celebrations, protests and remembrance ever since. There is more on our George Square page.

A Georgian square

The square was laid out in 1781 as part of the new grid of the growing city, and named after King George III. For its first years it was little more than a muddy hollow, but within a few decades it was lined with elegant houses, and by the mid-1800s it had become the commercial and civic centre of the booming merchant city.

The City Chambers

The east side of the square is dominated by the palatial City Chambers, designed by the architect William Young and opened by Queen Victoria in 1888. A Victorian Baroque masterpiece and the seat of the city council, it was built at the very height of Glasgow’s wealth as the Second City of the Empire, and it remains one of the grandest civic buildings in Britain.

A gallery of statues

Some dozen statues stand around the square, and at its centre, unusually, is not a king but a writer: the eighty-foot column topped by Sir Walter Scott, raised in 1837, the first monument to Scott anywhere, before even Edinburgh’s. A statue of George III had been intended, but feeling towards him had soured after the American War of Independence ruined the tobacco lords, and Scott took the top spot instead. Around him stand Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on horseback, Robert Burns, James Watt, Sir Robert Peel and more, together with the Cenotaph, the city’s war memorial. They are among the finest of Glasgow’s civic buildings and monuments.

The city’s stage

For two centuries the square has been where Glasgow comes together, for Hogmanay and concerts, for markets and remembrance, for celebration and for protest. It was here, on a January day in 1919, that the Battle of George Square unfolded, when troops and tanks were sent into the city, as we describe in our post on Red Clydeside.

When was George Square built?

It was laid out in 1781 and named after King George III, though it took several decades to develop fully into the civic square we know today.

Why is there a statue of Walter Scott in George Square?

The central column, raised in 1837, was the first monument to Sir Walter Scott anywhere. A statue of George III had been intended for the spot but was dropped.

What is the building on George Square?

The grand building on the east side is the City Chambers, opened in 1888, the headquarters of Glasgow City Council and a masterpiece of Victorian architecture.