THE former Martyrs’ School building in Glasgow’s Townhead is to be sold by Glasgow City Council to the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland for £250,000 ahead of it being transformed into a Scottish Catholic archive museum.
Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the three-storey building is regarded as being of ‘significant’ architectural and heritage importance. Designed for the School Board of Glasgow, it was completed in 1898 before being used as a school and college facility until the 1970s.
Later being used as an arts centre and office space for council museum and social work teams, it became vacant for some time and was eventually declared surplus in June 2024, with the local authority finding no use for it.
The sale to the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland was approved by a council committee today (June 12), with the building now set to be sensitively refurbished through a £1.75 million works programme, funded by the purchaser.
As well as becoming a public museum, the building will also feature office space to ensure it is fully-occupied.
Councillor Ruairi Kelly, convener for heritage, development, and land use at Glasgow City Council, said, “The successful sale of the Martyrs’ School is to be a celebrated, with a new and sustainable use found for an A listed heritage building in a historic Glasgow district. Finding sustainable uses for unused and underused heritage buildings is a priority for the council. It will be fantastic to see new life coming to this early example of Mackintosh’s work, with public access bringing another attraction for local people and visitors to the city centre.”
