145 Buccleuch Street

Typical Glasgow tenements, four rooms on one floor are now a museum

Agnes Toward might be the ultimate packrat. The ephemera of her life has been painstakingly preserved at the Tenement House Museum, a four-room time capsule that shows what it was like to live in Glasgow for the first half of the 20th century. Agnes and her mother moved into the red sandstone Victorian tenement flat in 1911 and shared a bed in the kitchen alcove while renting out the flat’s only bedroom to a lodger. Agnes stayed on after her mother’s death, remaining in the flat for 54 years and apparently not discarding much during that time. It was a posh residence in that there was a spacious indoor bathroom. Like most Glaswegians, though, Agnes would have used the neighborhood “steamie” or public washroom on a once a week rotation. Her ration card, gas mask, and recipes using dried eggs hint at the hardships of living through two world wars. She seems to have had a full life, however, working as a typist and enjoying holidays at the seashore, regularly corresponding with friends, and attending theatre performances. What she left behind speaks to the dignity of an ordinary woman persevering through good times and bad.