So?

Lord Provand's House

A visit from a hantu hunter prompted me to write about Provand's Lordship house in Glasgow. Touted to be the oldest house here, it was built in the 15th Century and outstanding example of Scottish domestic architechture. So that's what medieval house would look like.

The house is opposite St Mungo museum of Religious Life and Art, situated at the starting of Castle Street. It is a three storey stone house. We noticed the house on the way to Govanhill before but don't have the time nor the reason why we should visit the house.

Last month, there was a kind of orientation session cum breaking fast for new Muslim Malaysian students in Glasgow, so I and housemate decided to come early as we want to take some 'autumn' pictures inf front of St Mungo Cathederal amongst the fallen yellow and brown leaves. Masya Allah, it's just so pretty...

After the photo session, we saw the house opposite the road. Checked the time, seems that we still have much time before iftar. Asked housemate whether it's okay that we go and have a look, she said she game. By the time we stepped inside the old house, my heart started pounding. Actually it's a signal that I'm entering an unknown territory. I got the signal symptom after the 'incident' in Rome in 2001. Since then my antenna bacame too sensitive and always worked overtime.

It got stronger when we stepped further inside the house. It's dark and the century old oak beams were low. It was just plain eerie. There was a St Mary holding dead (I assumed) Jesus statue at the side of the dining room on the ground floor. The dining table and chairs were also very old and fragile. From there we climbed up the spiral stairway to the second floor.

We ventured to one of the room and was greeted by the 'Canon' which is actually a dummy sitting in wooden chair. Aisey! Made me startled. Ingatkan apa la tadi. We dared not venture into other rooms, just peeked from the stairway. So, we decided, lets go upstair. The top floor is the most modern room in the house. It was renovated and placed with false floor to preserve the original oak floor. It's turned into a modern tiny museum with pictures of old Trongate, Sauchiehall and other areas in Glasgow in 1700s to 1800s. From here, we can view the St Nicholas Garden situated at the back of the house. As usual, they adopted the concept of paradise in Islam where the greenery of garden is complement with fountain in the middle. Unfortunately visitors could not enter the garden so we can only appreciate its beauty behind glass windows.

We left after 15 minutes of touring the house. My uncomfortableness immediately dissipate. So I know for sure that the house is occupied by the unseens (can we pluralise them?). I looked at housemate jokingly said that we're lucky to visit the house during the Ramadhan month when the hantus and the setans were bounded and gagged. Ya ka?