Coffee House in Glasgow

 A lady called Irene on the Facebook group "Blasts from the Past" has given a most interesting insight into the arrival of coffee in Glasgow.

The Lyon Register was created in 1672 and if Gayre's book is correct, within two years a Colonel Whitefoord had matriculated his arms:

I have had a go at cobbling this together, with the small crest common in the period in Scottish arms:

The year before he recorded his arms, it seems that Colonel Walter Whytefoord had opened the very first coffee shop in Britain outside London on Glasgow. This was two years before the arrival in the city of tobacco and sugar.

The Colonel was given on  October 11th 1673 a licence to: "sett up to sell, top and vent coffie within the samyne burgh, for the space of nyntine yeares nixt after the dait heirof." His shop seems to have been at the corner of Trongate and Saltmarket.