“Follow me up this dark and narrow alley, trust me I know where I’m going.”  Well, what are we waiting for?  Let’s join DJ Jim Gellatly, a man with an irresistibly trustable tone of voice, inviting us up a side street. And there’s a surprise in store.

It’s a real hidden treasure.  “Hidden in plain sight,” as the Daily Record recently reported. You might easily miss one of Glasgow’s most beautiful Mackintosh buildings although it’s just round the corner from Central Station.  Even architecture tours do not always lead you up Renfield Lane. 

Renfield Lane is a stopping place on Underground Sounds: Route 4 of Glasgow Music Tour. Download here 

“People scuttle along the narrow lane and don’t stop to look up,” said ­Mackintosh expert Pamela Robertson in a Daily Record story paying tribute to the extraordinary old building which Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed for the Daily Record Printing Works in 1901. Since then the building has had many different uses and the world has often passed it by. 

But now drawings and photographs of the beautiful glazed building are among the many CRM works celebrated in a London exhibition: Mackintosh Architecture.  And the Record, for one, hopes this will help to bring a newly informed audience to explore the streets of Glasgow.

With all due modesty, Walking Heads is proud to be already blazing a trail up many a side street where there is almost always something to catch the eye and ear.  But Renfield Lane is one of our very favourite places – and incidentally we have started many a tour for visiting journalists right here at the Stereo. 

So follow Jim, our DJ guide, and he will take you to Stereo, the new identity of the old Mackintosh building.  Pause for a moment, with your back to the Old Hairdressers (another destination of note).  Unfortunately you can’t stand far enough back to take it all in which is why the exhibition is so important. As Pamela Robertson puts it: “Mackintosh’s beautiful perspective drawing shows us a view that a passer-by can never have.”[Scroll down to see a drawing here.]

A vertical challenge in narrow Renfield Lane

And of course, this being a stopping point on the Glasgow Music Tour, we strongly urge you to go inside.  And, yes, Stereo is a sister venue to the Mono Cafe Bar which we visit on Route 1 of Glasgow Music Tour. You won’t regret a visit.  Like Mono, Stereo offers good vegan food and deliciously eclectic indie music. John Hopkins, BMX Bandits, Omar Soliman, Rolo Tomassi and the Silver Apples are among the very diverse mix to play here.

Download Glasgow Music Tour as a smartphone app or audio only for mp3 players, there’s so much more to discover up side streets and down alleys alive with music.

Mackintosh Architecture is on at The Architecture Gallery, RIBA, 66 Portland Place, W1B 1AD, London 10.00am to May 23 10 am to 5.00pm

Underground Sounds: Route 4 of Glasgow Music Tour. Download here