THE owner of the Mackintosh-designed Willow Tearooms in Glasgow has bought the famous Miss Cranston's Tearooms name.
From next week, Anne Mulhern will start selling cakes, biscuits and teas under a new Miss Cranston logo on a dedicated website that will also tell her story.
The Miss Cranston's brand name had been owned by Bradfords bakers until it went into liquidation in July 2013 after almost 90 years in business. Bradford's last used Miss Cranston's on its best-known branch in the city's Gordon Street.
Miss Catherine (Kate) Cranston was the daughter of a Glasgow baker and sister of a tea merchant. She was a supporter of the Temperance movement, and saw her "art-room" tearooms as an alternative to the pub.
She was also a significant patron of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. She commissioned him to design the iconic white tearooms that opened in 1903 in Sauchiehall Street, which still operate today.
Although Miss Cranston also commissioned him to design her three other Glasgow tearooms in Argyle, Buchanan and Ingram streets, the one at Sauchiehall Street became known as the Willow Tearooms because Mackintosh's design for them was inspired by the fact that "Sauchiehall" is derived from "saugh", the Scots word for a willow tree.
The four-storey Art Nouveau building was recently purchased for £400,000 by the Celia Sinclair charitable trust and a £900,000 fundraising campaign is underway to repair and restore it to its former glory in 2016.
The interiors feature Mackintosh's original leaded glass windows and panels, moulded plaster freizes and white-painted oak panelling. Ms Mulhern hopes to be able to re-open the tearoom at street level, and to be able to use the original Mackintosh fireplaces, recently uncovered.
Ms Mulhern offered £5,200 of her own money to secure the right to use the Miss Cranston's name, but did not know who or how many rivals she was competing with.
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