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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
Steven Brown

The striking Glasgow building that was once Scotland's 'Wall Street'

Glasgow city centre is home to many examples of world-class architecture with many formal design models from gothic style buildings to Victorian tenements.

But one striking building on Buchanan Street, which is now home to popular retail outlets, used to be home to the Glasgow Stock Exchange.

Located on the corner of Nelson Mandela Place, the five storey building, in the city centre was built for the stock market which was completed in 1877. But what ever happened to the Glasgow Stock Exchange?

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The exchange was founded in 1844 with 28 members of the financial group with the vast majority of them working for wealthy investors.

This was all set to change as by 1930, the stock exchange had 277 members with many banks and insurance companies now working in the building.

At the start of 1964, the four local stock exchanges of Scotland, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow merged into one with the headquarters in the Glasgow building on Buchanan Street.

In 1969, the functions of the stock exchange was temporarily moved to Ingram Street to make way for the refurbishment of the building which lasted two years to make the exchange more practical and functional.

On the re-opening of the building in 1971, at time time, Glasgow Times reported: "The modernised premises will provide more spacious and comfortable accommodation for the staff and workers, and create a freer market with the business of all the stock exchanges in Scotland being concentrated in one building."

However, in 1973 only a few years down the line, the Scottish Stock Exchange merged with the London Stock Exchange and the Glasgow building was left vacant.

According to news reports at the time, this happened because the UK government wanted to centralise the economic industry in the country and to cut the costs of administration fees along with other reasons.

Since the closure of the stock market in Scotland there have been many calls and attempts to re-establish the industry in Scotland but many economic factors have led those projects to dead ends.

In 2019, Project Heather, the campaign to re-start the was given a £750,000 government grant from Scottish Enterprise which would have seen the stock market located in Edinburgh.

However, these plans were not successful as it was reported that there was a failure of funding for the idea.

The building on Buchanan Street which was designed by Scottish architect, John Burnett now has shops like Urban Outfitters and North Face trading in them.

The well-known architect also created the Tomb of George Baillie by Glasgow Cathedral and the University of Glasgow's, Mcintyre Building and is believed to have been inspired by the Royal Courts of Justice.

It is now a category A listed building in Scotland and one of the most impressive buildings in the city centre.

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