The Old Toll Bar Reopens

The Old Toll Bar, 1-3 Paisley Road West, Glasgow G51 1LF

Glasgow only has a handful of historically significant bar interiors left (including The Horseshoe, The Steps, The Railway Tavern, The Portland Arms and The Laurieston) so it’s positive news that one of those, the Old Toll Bar, is to re-open on Saturday (1st October).

Languishing empty for at least a couple of years, the Old Toll has been comprehensively refurbished by Old Toll Inns Ltd, who have ambitious plans for the joint.
The Old Toll started trading in 1893 (not 1874, as stated on the wall outside) and is probably Scotland’s best example of a trend described as the “palace pubs”, not to be confused with the “gin palaces” of earlier in the 19th century.

This style of pub aimed to draw people away from the confines of their one-roomed dwellings into grand, impressively designed places of entertainment and booze. Ornaments and fittings of not only great value, but dazzling to the late Victorian/early Edwardian eye were the means by which the owners of these venues attracted large numbers of punters.

In the case of the Old Toll, etched and painted glass, beautiful advertising mirrors and improbably smooth dark wood are the significant features that will have entranced drinkers over its long lifetime.

But all of these are surpassed by the bar’s gantry – eight original spirit casks sit high and proud, above recessed sections rendered grotto-like by clever use of light and shade. At the very top, the wood is carved like a ship’s prow and in the centre of this magnificence the Old Toll clock ticks, bearing the bar’s date of birth.




The new owners are sweeping away the extraneous modern clutter of TVs and fruit machines that obscured the grandeur of the interior. On my last visit to the Old Toll, about five years ago, these new additions were an annoyance, as was the totally abandoned nature of the downstairs lounge and the lacklustre bar service.

Not that it is easy running a traditional pub in a relatively obscure part of the city, where footfall will never be that of the city centre, this in contrast to earlier times when the pub – as suggested by its name – sat at a toll point of a major turnpike west out of the city.
But the bar doesn’t sit in complete isolation today, there are four or five bars nearby, most notably the Viceroy – itself a little gem of a traditional pub, with Knox brothers’ stained glass from the late-Victorian era and a terrazzo spittoon.

The other bars in the area show that Rangers’ influence is strong around here, with the triangulation of The Angel, The Quayside and The Union Bar dominating. And unsurprisingly, this association is a long one. One of the Gers’ most famous players, Jim Baxter, was the landlord of a previous incarnation of The Union Bar, and his son, Stephen, was at one time the landlord of The Old Toll Bar itself. As an aside, in my pre-BB days I had a run-in with the latter when he was throwing his not inconsiderable size about. But I’ll leave that story for another time.

I’m still negotiating with the Muse over my attendance at the Old Toll’s re-opening on Saturday and hoping to be the first inside its walls, but whether I make it or not, it will be fascinating to see if the new owners are successful in their project promising craft beer from small producers like Up Front Brewing and Fallen Brewing; classic cocktails with a modern twist; and old board games and gramophones. If things go well, this chapter in the life of the Old Toll could well be entitled – the past re-energised.

Lists are for the Guidance of Wise Men and the Direction of Fools

The List magazine guide to eating and drinking in Glasgow and Edinburgh fails to provide an unbiased or comprehensive guide.

Forgive me the title paraphrasing and allow me a confession: I, too, use guides.

Now that unburdening is out of the way let me explain. For overseas trips and impromptu city visits they are necessary, merely to avoid hours of wandering around looking for any decent watering holes that would ensue if one arrived directionless.

Where there is time for a decent amount of research I do just that, drawing on a wide selection of sources and opinions. My own experience is the best source I know but until cloning becomes free on the NHS my singular presence can never be enough to stride every corner of the globe.

When it comes to nearer home I do look at bar guides, sometimes to fill gaps in my imbibing knowledge but mostly to compare notes, to see what others think of pubs I like and dislike. It can be quite diverting.

For a few years The List has been probably the best-known eating guide in Scotland. It has ambitions UK-wide but it can’t match, sorry, the big marketing budgets of English-based competitors. And this is shown most clearly when you look at the List’s online presence.

But I used to look forward to the latest hard copy List Guide, or magazine, as you could call it with validity before the true arrival of the internet.

The guide’s concentration upon restaurants meant that my interest was merely frivolous but in recent years, with the blurring of lines between eateries and drinkeries, The List started a new section on pubs and bars. This direct move into my territory ceased the offhand way I would look at the annual publication.

It quickly became clear that The List reviewers were selecting bars from a narrow range, largely ruling out traditional bars. A few were included but even this small number decreased until this year only a handful from Glasgow and Edinburgh are reviewed.

Omissions from Glasgow include The Horseshoe, The Scotia, Liosmore, The Laurieston, The Steps Bar and The Old Toll. Within this number are interiors showing the best intact examples of Edwardian, Art Deco and ‘60s design you will find in virtually any British pub. And they aren’t mere museum pieces, good times can be enjoyed at any hour they open their doors.

Only two venues are reviewed east of High Street – West Brewery and The Vintage, these being included only for their craft beer. Meanwhile, two absolute period gems The Railway Tavern and The Portland Arms don’t feature because they are too far east and too working class.

In Edinburgh there are also many great bars ignored. For example, the magazine mentions how vibrant Leith is as a focus of hospitality but in this area alone, stalwarts such as The Central Bar, Carriers Quarter and Port o’ Leith are missing.

And, popping downtown to the New Town and Stockbridge, no reviews of places like The Bailey, Star Bar and Kay’s Bar. The latter’s omission is particularly noteworthy. This tiny mews bar with a unique appearance and atmosphere featured before in the magazine but not this time.

Two other distinguished names The Sheep’s Heid (possibly the city’s oldest) and The Canny Man (possibly the city’s haughtiest landlord) were also previously included but not now. No list of Edinburgh pubs can sensibly omit such idiosyncratic items as these, their distinguishing features going beyond the latest bar fashions.

This fixation with fashion may be explained by my suspicion that a majority of the reviewers are wannabe hipsters who don’t have an appreciation of what actually makes Glasgow and Edinburgh the drinking cities they are. They have no perspective on the development of nightlife on a timespan beyond last year and are then unable to define a city from any other.

So we get a list of bar reviews that could just as easily be describing a joint in Birmingham or Buckingham as in one of our two largest cities. Maybe that’s what they want, an identikit, chain-city where they and fellow pseudo trendies can play unmolested by the rest of the population?

Their narrow focus and lack of knowledge manifest themselves, for example, in an ignorance – wilful or not – of any kind of bar scene in Glasgow’s East End and in their treatment of an area such as Finniestion. For The List and its writers the district is just Glasgow’s version of Shoreditch/Hoxton.

Its industrial legacy and claim to be the last part of Glasgow’s west end to be gentrified mean pretty much nothing to them and they seem to have no knowledge that Finnieston has always had plenty of bars – before the ratio of traditional to contemporary pubs was 9-1 and it’s now vice versa.

Aside from the content of the magazine, it claims that all review visits are incognito and that inclusion is not secured through payment. A strange claim that when you consider the consistent inclusion of certain joints and the equally consistent exclusion of similar places bars and restaurants.

And from Edinburgh’s famous Rose Street the Abbotsford is featured while the equally impressive Kenilworth is not. One wonders why until you notice the large ad placed by the pub group owning the Abbotsford, the Guildford Arms and others, all of which are included in the guide.

Bar/nightlife guides are useful and fun and, hopefully, free but unless you are a recently-bearded clone who thinks the best fun to be had when the sun goes down is a few craft beers at the opening of the 38th Brewdog outlet, steer clear of The List.

Linthouse - The Vital Spark & The Gazelle

The Vital Spark, 1155 Govan Road, Glasgow G51
The Gazelle, 1213 Govan Road, Glasgow G51


This is what I love to do. Forget the pubs everyone knows about and hunt the bars that rarely feature in any guide, online or otherwise. All pubs need custom, some more than others and I’m always in favour of redistribution.

Linthouse is at the dark end of Govan; most non-locals will only know it as the area into which they emerge after driving southbound through the Clyde Tunnel. By dark end I don’t mean the grimmer end, because you can’t get much grimmer than Govan these days, but at the obscure end, G’s little brother.

As such you would expect some dark little boozers hidden in the back streets but secretive bars hardly exist any more, even here. So both these places sit on the main street, Govan Road. They are only one hundred yards apart but are taking very different routes into the possible future of pubbing for non-city centre urban joints.

The Vital Spark succeeded Fairfield’s a few years ago. The former place was quite well known and its presence is still apparent on Google Maps. The new(ish) name may be a nod to the famous shipbuilding tradition round here. Incidentally, that tradition, fragile as it is now may even be broken entirely if BAE Systems choose their Govan yard as the one of three to close.

Just how many shipworkers use the Vital Spark is unknown but it is a welcoming place despite having only one window. I would guess the original interior is long gone and in its place is a slice of suburban clubland. Plenty of cream, sofas, fairy lights, mirrors and soft furnishings scattered throughout.

It’s as if a whole street of neighbours got together and placed their various pieces of cut-price bling into one big room. Sounds rather naff but it isn’t. It has a genuine warmth and inclusiveness and accompanying the pooling of furniture and fittings are the neighbours themselves.

Couples – young, middle-aged and older – along with singles of both gender come in every day of the week to support the place. And the way they chat to each other and the bar staff it appears like this is a community effort, a venue they all have a stake in.

Fanciful? Perhaps just an over-optimistic appraisal but when one sits there at 6pm on a winter Wednesday and the music throbs out one could believe anything.

West along the main road to The Gazelle and things appear very different. The small high windows only reveal a harsh light similar to the kind of lighting you get in gent’s conveniences. Not a good start. But this forbidding frontage is worth penetrating.

Inside, is one of the cleanest pubs I have sat in (forgive the pun). Every surface shines and that includes the wooden floor which would be an envy of any home. The only rival to this level of cleanliness is the District Bar on Paisley Road West at the other end of Govan Road.

And underneath the impressive glass and dark wood gantry, mixer bottles are arranged in incredibly neat rows, this reminiscent of the tidy bar work you find at The Laurieston. The striped two-tone banquettes make for comfortable and stylish seating and even those windows are complimented with high quality roller blinds.

You can sit and enjoy The Govan Press on those banquettes or at the bar on a high stool while other single drinkers accompany their dog while it sips from its own shiny bowl. The Gazelle nods towards other aspects of pub life with karaoke and quiz nights, and satellite football but this kind of conviviality is its speciality.

To the left of the main bar is a lounge decorated in scarlet and cream (looks better than it sounds) and this could be a great wee place for more private chats or modest functions.

The Gazelle was previously the well-renowned Stuart’s restaurant of 1960s vintage. Back then, the rage wasn’t for floor-to-ceiling windows, so you can get misunderstandings today about joints and their true nature when so little of the interior can be seen from the street.

This is a leased tenancy – the present occupant only there a couple of months – and this leaves it at a further disadvantage from free houses like The Vital Spark, in terms of flexibility, breathing space and a sustainable profit. But, regardless of type of ownership both these bars will struggle for at least the next decade.

You don’t have to think about any of these things to visit either of these bars. Just do it. And help those less fortunate. After all, it is the season for it.