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Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Miss Cranston ruled the social scene in Glasgow in the late 19th century. In a series of tea rooms, one restored in Glasgow—The Willow Tea Rooms—another, the Ingram, restored and installed in the Kelvingrove Museum (a World Monuments Fund project) , a third at the new V and A in Dundee (which I preferred, with a more robust and less fussy integrity),all developed in time when temperance in the air. Mackintosh was himself an alcoholic but these rooms, among the first where ladies could gather unchaperoned, anchored his fanciful designs. In actual fact, his wife Margaret was a co-author of many of his spaces, but has naturally receded in historical terms. The city of Glasgow aims to bring her to our attention by featuring her work alongside his both in the tea rooms and in their (free) museums.