TO traverse Glasgow's South Side is to travel rigidly along major roads shooting out of the city centre like spokes on a wheel - Kilmarnock Road, Cathcart Road, Victoria Road, Aikenhead Road. Then came the M77 gliding drivers south without them even having to see the world around them save some grassy banks and trees. So even south-siders can sometimes be ignorant of vast tracts of the area which they have never visited.

Netherlee Road, near Cathcart Cemetery and Linn Park, is easy to by-pass as it doesn't really take you anywhere. Thousands will drive along nearby Cathcart Road every day and will never have even seen it. So that is why when I ask a few south-siders if they have ever visited Holmwood House on Netherlee Road they merely shrug their shoulders. A few have seen signs for it, but no, have not actually been there.

Holmwood House though was having a summer garden party at the weekend, and as a Glaswegian - one of many it seems who has never set foot in the house - it would have been churlish not to go. The signs to Holmwood House are discreet - we Scots it seems don't like to make a fuss. Then you walk down a tree-lined private road for almost 100 yards to find a large wide-open grassy garden, leading down through trees to the White Cart River. This is a desirable rural setting only a couple of miles from the city centre. How many house-builders over the years must have dreamed of getting their hands on this rich green sward.

Then to the right is Holmwood House, a villa designed by Scots architect Alexander "Greek" Thomson. It is stunning. If I was an estate agent I would say it has "the wow factor". I only know that as I actually said "wow" to myself when I saw it. Now I have no architectural knowledge so the difference between ionic and doric columns sails over my head. I just know that this is one of the most pleasing buildings I have seen in Scotland. And I never knew it was there.

It is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland, and tour guide Iain McGilvray, one of those many clever folk who use their retirement to keep their brains active by being guides rather than simply slumping in front of the telly, explains that Thomson built the villa for one of the Couper Brothers who owned a very successful paper mill on the Cart River just below the house, and who also paid for the Couper Institute to be built. The Couper Institute is on Clarkston Road, one of those spokes out of the city, so most folk know where it is.

Holmwood House though was not simply going to be a home for James Couper but also somewhere where he could dine and impress clients and friends. So Thomson gave it his theatrical best. Light streams in everywhere. There are ceiling-to-floor windows in the dining room. There is a cupola held up by chimera. And this is where guides such as Iain are vital. He points out the sun shining on the wall from the cupola and then how the glass in it is designed to then reflect any passing clouds on to the wall. Just stand there for a while until a cloud comes past. In Glasgow of course that doesn't take too long.

So this is Thomson's Greek revivalist style but with a modern touch almost with echoes of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Macintosh. "Did Thomson ever visit Greece?" I ask Iain. "Never got beyond Pollokshaws as far as I can gather," he tells me.

There are stencils of Greek gods on the wall which were later covered up by future owners of the House - the Sisters of our Lady of the Missions. Yes nuns. If you look at the door to the pantry there is a small mesh-covered hole built in where the nuns said their confessions. Iain confides that a nun who stayed there was once asked what nuns could possibly have the need to confess to. "We still have our thoughts," she replied.

Their mission was to look after children and they had a primary school built at the back of the house. Not a very pretty primary school at that. When they moved on, a developer did indeed spy the land and wanted to convert the house into flats with another five blocks of flats in the gardens.

Then a miracle happened. Perhaps it was the influence of the departing nuns if that is not too blasphemous an aside. Glasgow's council, not always known for keeping the barbarians from the gate, refused planning permission, and the National Trust stepped in.

If Holmwood House was in the Scottish Borders where would be a steady stream of visitors and tourists as it would be on a tourist trail, but not in Glasgow's South Side, known of course for the Burrell and Pollok House, but not much else. The South Side Tourist Trail is definitely needed.

So the National Trust, who knocked down the old primary school, tries different ways of attracting people - the summer garden festival was one way. They also commissioned Glasgow architects Dress for the Weather, who arranged for designers to develop their own work in paper and fabrics at Holmwood by taking inspiration from Thomson. Craft classes for keen amateurs have also been held.

Holmwood House is not a grand baronial hall. There are only about six rooms. But the different architectural tricks of Thomson - there is a fake door complete with hinges in the dining room to add symmetry - make it a building Glasgow can be a little bit prouder of than it seems to be at present. I dislike the phrase "hidden gem" as, if it is a gem, why would we hide it?

It's time for Glaswegians to give this gem a little more polish.