Glasgow’s finest 18^th-century domestic building has one of Britain’s best collections of Spanish paintings. The Neo-Classical central block of Pollok House was finished in 1750, the sobriety of its exterior contrasting with the exuberant plasterwork within.

The Maxwells have lived at Pollok since the mid-13^th century, but the male line ended with Sir John Maxwell, who designed the gardens and parkland. In 1966 Anne Maxwell Macdonald  gave the house to the City of Glasgow.

Hanging above the family silver, porcelain, hand-painted Chinese wallpaper and Jacobean glass, are William Blake’s Sir Geoffrey Chaucer and the Nine and Twenty Pilgrims ( 1745) as well as William Hogarth’s portrait of James Thomson, who wrote the words to Rule Britannia. El Greco’s Lady in a Ful Wrap ( 1541) and works by Goya and Murillo adorn the library and drawing room.