The National Trust for Scotland has unveiled plans for new visitor facilities at the Hill House, as part of their project to secure the long-term future of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s internationally significant masterpiece.
The proposals are part of Mackintosh Illuminated, our project to conserve, celebrate and share the legacy of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh. Made possible thanks to support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the programme brings together major conservation work with new visitor experiences, research, storytelling, learning, community engagement and digital innovation, centred around the Hill House in Helensburgh and the Mackintosh Tearooms in Glasgow.
A planning application is being submitted later this month by the Scottish-based specialist conservation architects LDN to Argyll and Bute Council for purpose-built visitor facilities at the Hill House.
These will include new engagement and interpretation facilities as well as a café and shop, improving the visitor experience and access to the Helensburgh site that currently welcomes 32,000 visitors each year.
The award-winning Hill House Box, completed in 2019, has protected the house from the elements while allowing the building to dry and enabling vital conservation research.
As work progresses towards the removal of the Box, the proposed new building would provide permanent visitor facilities away from the house itself – it would be located on an area of low-grade land behind the house, currently used as a car park.
The site has been assessed by the National Trust for Scotland’s Head of Nature Conservation as part of the development of the proposals – no significant trees are expected to be displaced, and any vegetation affected by the development is limited to scrub and brush.
The new centre will improve the way visitors arrive at and experience the Hill House, and will offer a fully accessible space while supporting the property’s contribution to Helensburgh’s wider visitor offer.
The announcement follows the successful removal of the Hill House’s original Portland cement roughcast earlier this year, following five and a half months of specialist work. The newly exposed walls are now being studied and tested to inform the next phase of conservation.
Liz Davidson, Project Director for Mackintosh Illuminated at the National Trust for Scotland, said: “The Hill House was designed as a complete work of architecture, where the building, interiors and landscape were conceived in relation to one another.
“Our long-term ambition is to conserve the house so that the Box can be removed, and Mackintosh’s architecture can once again be understood in that setting. The proposed new visitor facilities are an important part of achieving that.
“By locating the facilities away from the house, we can provide what a modern visitor attraction needs and protect the architectural integrity, allowing the Hill House itself to once again define this part of the Helensburgh skyline.”