Pollok House is a country house right in the middle of a Glasgow city park, bordered on one side by the M77 and on the other side by the south side of Glasgow. It is owned by Glasgow City Council and looked after by the National Trust for Scotland. It truly is a house for the people, surrounded by the people. As well as an excellent tea room, Pollok has an impressive collection of Spanish art, the legacy of the man who once owned the house, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell. Unfortunately, some of Pollok's treasures have been placed in storage due to a leaking roof and urgent renovations. But could one of these displaced pictures be a priceless work, lost for centuries, hiding north of the border? It would be international news if it was.
Dr Bendor Grosvenor and Emma Dabiri travel to Glasgow to investigate a long-lost picture of one of the most famous gay men in history, possibly painted by one of the most famous artists in history. The subject of the painting is none other than George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, who was the gay lover of James VI of Scotland (James I of England). But how did he end up in Glasgow? While Bendor squares up to a rival portrait in Florence which claims to be the real Buckingham portrait, Emma finds that William Stirling-Maxwell had a secret family in Jamaica and that sugar and tobacco built Glasgow long before shipbuilding was its major industry. Show less