St. Enoch Station Hotel

St. Enoch Station Hotel (Mr. E. W. Thiem, Manager), St. Enoch Station.—

    There is no feature in the great commercial activity of Glasgow that deserves more attentive consideration than the excellent provisions she has made in the matter of hotel accommodation for visitors spending a long or short period of time within her always hospitable boundaries. Of all the excellent results of Glasgow’s efforts to place her hotel system second to none in Great Britain, there is not any that commands attention more forcibly and justifiably than that manifested in the St. Enoch Station Hotel.

    The hotel was instituted and opened in 1879 in connection with the St. Enoch Station, which latter, by the way, it is not too much to say has no actual superior in the three kingdoms in any point that can serve to recommend a modem railway station. The hotel and the station are thus under the one proprietary, that of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway Company, at the head of which, as chairman, is Matthew William Thompson, Esq., the well-known chairman of the Midland Railway Company ; and the organization which has given to Glasgow such an excellent service of railway communication as that terminating at St. Enoch Station may certainly be depended upon to carry similarly acceptable principles into effect in providing for the hotel requirements of passengers by its own and other lines.

    When the Glasgow and South-Western Railway inaugurated its fine new hotel the enterprise of the company was commended on all sides, and the establishment founded was pronounced by both press and public to be one of the most complete and commodious, comfortable and well-appointed, in the British Isles. Since then occurrences and circumstances have all combined to fully confirm in every respect the double verdict thus pronounced. The hotel building is a stately structure of free and dignified treatment in its architectural design, which embodies leading characteristics of the Gothic order, and is indebted for the style of its mouldings to the Early English period. The elevation is one of peculiarly striking and noble aspect, surmounted by a stone balustrade, and enriched by various balconneted projections which give the requisite diversity of outline. The entire facade is most ornate in detail and exceedingly handsome in generality, and the height of the main building from the basement to the bedrooms in the mansard roof is not less than one hundred and twenty feet.

    The establishment, considered as a whole, is one of great magnitude, having accommodation of the best class for upwards of three hundred guests, and it possesses the salient advantage of being housed in a building erected especially for its purposes, and endowing it from the very start with every characteristic mark and token of a first-class “hotel of the period”. There is no point upon which the public of to-day is more exacting than that of hotels in general, and when an establishment of the ancient inn family “sets up” to be in bona fide an “hotel of the period”, it is at once presented with a standard of general merit up to which it must act, or fail.

    The St. Enoch Station Hotel has observed every rule and canon of that standard with absolute fidelity for nearly ten years. The interior appointments, fittings, plan, and general arrangement of the hotel are of the most perfect order. All description would avail but slightly in accentuating the meritorious features of such an establishment, and pages of written detail could only serve to vaguely indicate the existence of comforts and luxuries, refinement and home-like convenience, which thousands of voyageurs from every quarter of the United Kingdom and from all parts of the world have tested over and over again, and found them always the same, or varying only to improve. Everything that unlimited resources of capital and unbounded enterprise and experience could do to make the St. Enoch Station Hotel a perfect modern establishment of its kind has been accomplished without thought or consideration of expense, and the whole place stands to-day, within and without, a monument to the energy and spirit that have made it what it is, and have maintained it so. The capabilities of the hotel may be simply indicated in the fact that accommodation has been provided within its walls for as many as sixty thousand sleepers in the course of a year, and this suggests likewise the transaction of a great volume of business as represented by such an average per diem as the above figure will show under arithmetical treatment.

    The cuisine of the St. Enoch Station Hotel is admittedly unsurpassed by any house in the kingdom, and its yearly bill of fare, conned by the eye of the connoisseur in matters gastronomic and epicurean, will amply substantiate this statement in so far as the actual nature and name of the comestibles supplied are concerned. For their culinary preparation a simple glance at the magnificent kitchen and a survey of the professional “pedigree” of the talented chef retained, will stand as ample and sufficient guarantees of unimpeachable excellence. The wine-list is irreproachable, and all its items are selected with the care and experience that ensure superiority.

    The attendance is of the best, the general conveniences in the way of billiard and smoking-rooms, passengers elevators, offices, private apartments, and rooms en suite, bath-rooms, &c., are manifest in full and complete array. The management is courteous, obliging, and always efficient. The charges are commendably moderate, and to the anxious inquirer, after all this has been set forth and demonstrated, we can only propound the double question (surely unanswerable), “What more do you expect, and what more can you possibly want ?”

    The situation of the hotel, quite in the heart of the city, and yet thoroughly quiet and select for all that, is one of its strongest recommendations, and must enhance the convenience of guests of every class, and there is certainly no hotel in Scotland, or for the matter of that in the United Kingdom, where greater provision of combined luxury and comfort has been made for visitors from any part of the world. And to the St. Enoch Station Hotel visitors do come from every part of the world in increasing numbers year after year, and their stay at this superb establishment can assuredly never be other than agreeable and pleasant and generally satisfactory under the excellent managerial auspices of Mr. E. W. Thiem, who invariably imparts to guests a favourable impression of the house, and than whom no man could apply himself with greater energy, activity, perseverance, or more admirable effect to the duties of an important and eminently responsible office.

    `The proprietary and management of the St. Enoch Station Hotel have evinced many traits and characteristics of enterprise in their conduct and administration of this palatial modem hostelry, and none of these have been in happier vein than the issue of the neat and beautifully printed “St. Enoch Station Hotel Guide to Glasgow and the Clyde”. This really handsome and acceptable souvenir of the house, published in the interests of its guests, contains a liberal instalment of information upon all topics of interest to visitors to Glasgow and the Clyde district. Its contents include descriptions of St. Enoch Station and of its magnificent hotel in detail ; an excellent map of Glasgow, a table of cab fares, an exhaustive list of places of public worship in the city ; another of all places of interest in Glasgow ; a complete guide and descriptive article relative to the Scottish commercial metropolis, its history, achievements, and present condition ; and a number of descriptive tours from Glasgow to the delightful resorts that throng the whole of the charming Clyde Valley and the adjacent highlands of Scotland — a land of firths and lochs, glens, forests, hills, and mountain torrents, a land of upland breezes and seaside solitudes, of pure fresh air, and of spots abounding in features of natural beauty, historic interest, and all the glamour of national romance. The book also contains an admirably printed and well-selected assortment of characteristic Scottish songs, with the music and words thereof, and cannot fail to be prized as a memento at once of the country and people, and of the noble hotel it serves to commemorate.

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