The reason behind bricked up window frames on Glasgow’s tenement buildings, and despite popular belief it’s not down to window tax.
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00:00 Have you ever walked past a block of tenement flats at any end of Glasgow and wondered why
00:06 so many windows have been bricked up? This is a common sight in the city, particularly
00:10 on the blonde sandstone buildings innate to the distinct local architecture, and on the
00:14 rare occasion an explanation is offered, it is usually put down to the window tax of the
00:18 18th century. However, this charge only really affected the richest Glaswegians, who had
00:23 lots and lots of windows which made the cost of bricking them up worth it. For the vast
00:26 majority that cost would have been more than paying the tax. Well, the real reason behind
00:31 these fake windows was to maintain symmetrical facades of the building, a common practice
00:35 in Georgian and Victorian architecture. Behind many of these windows are chimney flues which
00:40 allow smoke from residential fires to writhe through the building and out the roof. Perhaps
00:44 not as interesting as DIY tax avoidance, but they were never actually windows to begin
00:48 with. And this is not exclusive to Glasgow, it's actually very common in Edinburgh too.
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