The Grown Up Gapper: SCOTLAND

The stags and hens were having a well deserved lie-in this morning after their escapades of the night before, but I headed out of Glasgow on the train on a Sunday jaunt to Helensburgh - a well-to-do resort and commuter town where the Gare Loch meets the Clyde Estuary.

Helensburgh has a long south facing Esplanade - which provides a nice place for a stroll or a sit and the town slopes up the hill behind.

We all have our own favourite architects, artists and designers - in terms of modern architects I like the work of Sir Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava - but for me there is one stand out architect and designer Glasgow's Charles Rennie Mackintosh. In Helensburgh he designed The Hill House, high up above the town, which the National Trust for Scotland is currently facing a mammoth task to try and safeguard for the future.

In the words of the NTS The Hill House is "dissolving like an aspirin in a glass of water"

What has happened is that Mackintosh used a cement render on the outside of the house and unlike traditional lime render which allows a building to breath, the cement has allowed water in but then trapped it. This has in turn made the building incredibly damp and after over 100 years of Scottish weather the structure of the building is now disintegrating. What the NTS have therefore done is built a big metal box around the house to keep the rain out until such time as the building dries out. Once the building is dry they can then decide what to do to weatherproof it for the future. The "walls" of the box are chainmail and it is in fact the worlds largest chainmail structure.

It is all very impressive and you can walk around the metal structure and get views of the house you wouldn't normally be able to get. The box was erected 2 years ago and currently the NTS has planning permission for the structure for another 4 years, but the house is nowhere near dry yet so it will probably take longer.

Inside the The Hill House it is pure Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the library, drawing room, hall way and bedrooms, even the servants area - pantries and kitchen - all demonstrate his style and that of his artist wife Margaret McDonald with whom he worked on the project. It's not all about Mackintosh either as the house was built for publisher Walter Blackie and his family as their home so a visit also enables you to get an insight into how it was to live in the house and actually use the wonderful furniture and furnishings designed by Mackintosh and his wife.