The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451, making it one of the oldest english-speaking universities. The current buildings may look old, but they actually date from the 1870's when the campus was moved from its original central-city site to its current site on top of Gilmorehill in Glasgow's West End. The reason for the move: the original campus was located downhill from the city morgue and certain unseemly liquids had started to seep downhill making many of the professors and students sick. Nice. The current main building is a vast gothic-revival-style edifice, which is visible on the hilltop from many of the surrounding suburbs.
The University has its fair share of famous alumni, most of whom are mentioned on a gate near the main building e.g. Kelvin, Lister, Watt, Dewar, Melville. Also, the McGill, after whom McGill University in Canada was named, is a Glasgow alumnus. Another alumnus, William Hunter, donated an amazing collection of objects and art work (including some impressive Whistler's) to the University and they currently housed on-site in a free-entry Museum and separate Art Gallery.
The Department of Computing Science in the University has been around since the 1960's. In the past, it had a very strong Functional Programming group (hence the "G" in "GHC"), but most of them have since moved on. It has also had a strong Information Retrieval group (and still does), although the founder of the group (Keith van Rijsbergen) recently retired. Like most CS departments, Glasgow's CS enrolments around 2000 prompted the construction of a CS building. In this case, it was grafted on to one end of a row of terraces which had housed the department to that point. The grafting is interesting, leading to a staircase where the First Floor (old building) is above Level 2 (new building).
Actually the back entrance from Dumbarton Rd
Plaque revealing some history
Tower of Main Building
Tower (again ... different angle)
Main building cloisters
Main building quadrangle
Main building ... entrance to old department
Main building ... entrance to ... what?
Genuine Victorian-era grime near main building
McGill plaque in main building
Scary elephant skeleton in Hunterian Museum in main building
Sculptures near Hunterian Art Gallery (on campus)
Old entrance to Department of Computing Science
Terraces housing Department of Computing Science
Our spacious, but sparsely furnished, office (F152)
View out of our office window
And with the sun shining
A sparsely-leaved tree elsehwere on campus
