PICTURE the scene:

trams rattle along Sauchiehall Street as well-dressed ladies who lunch enjoy the surroundings of Kate Cranston's famed Willow Tearooms.

Meanwhile, just up the hill, in Renfrew Street, architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh's new Glasgow School of Art building is the talk of all Europe.

In the early days of the 20th Century, bustling and prosperous Glasgow was the 'second city of the Empire'.

It was also home to a burgeoning group of talented female artists and designers who left an indelible footprint on the art world.

Meet the 'Glasgow Girls', whose work and ideas are to be celebrated in a walking tour of Garnethill, organised by Glasgow Women's Library, the latest addition to this year's Creative Mackintosh Festival.

From Margaret Macdonald Macintosh and Frances McNair to Jessie M King, Ann Macbeth and Jessie Newbery, who, with their work in textiles, ceramics and metals, all had a hand in forging the distinctive Glasgow Style.

"The walk focuses on the little village of Garnethill," explains Dr Adele Patrick, lifelong learning manager at Glasgow Women's Library. "We cover a lot to do with the Art school but also the women who were either associated with Glasgow School of Art and the Mackintosh period or those who came later," .

"We have Jessie M King, who lived in the area, we also look at Hannah Frank and some of the women who followed on from the Glasgow Girls but were also artists associated with the area.

"Women such as Muriel Gray, who is the current chair of the board of Glasgow School of Art but has a long association with Garnethill because she went to school there."

The guided walk starts on the corner of Sauchiehall Street and Rose Street, where the long-vanished Copland and Lye offered the latest Paris fashions while next door's Pettigrew and Stephens was the biggest department store in the country.

Across the road is the Willow Tearooms, opened in 1903 by arts patron Kate Cranston, with elegant art nouveau interiors designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his wife, Margaret.

"Some of the tearooms were separated into ones for men and women," explains Adele. "It crossed over into the greatest campaigning period for the suffragettes and some of the tearooms were very much associated with suffragette agitation.

"The headquarters of one of the suffragette campaigning groups was on Sauchiehall Street."

Heading north to Garnethill Park, there are still traces to be seen of the environmental art and gable end paintings that were made in the 1970s.

On the corner of Hill Street and Dalhousie Street, a shopfront marks the first home of Glasgow Women's Library. Set up in 1991, and run by volunteers for its first seven years, it promoted the work of women artists and now has permanent base in the former Bridgeton Library.

The lamp-posts nearby are topped by sculptor Shona Kinloch's Chookie Burdies.

"In this really small area there are unbelievable milestones and landmarks created by women artists," says Adele. "If you imagine the Art School at the time when the suffragettes were making their banners and creating some of the medals that would be worn by suffragettes when they were released from prison after hunger striking ... there were some formidable women, remarkable heroines."

Another woman associated with Garnethill is crime-writer Denise Mina, who named her best-selling trilogy of books after the area. As a mature student she studied law but, instead of writing a PhD, she started her first novel. Later, a course at Glasgow Women's Library helped her beat writer's block.

Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh building is a major landmark on the tour. Though part of it was destroyed by a fire earlier this year, it still stands as a proud beacon to the city's design heritage.

Glasgow Art School moved into the building in 1899, And, thanks to its forward-thinking headmaster, Fra Newbery, there was no shortage of female students and staff. Two of them, Margaret and Frances Macdonald, were at the forefront of the evolving Glasgow Style.

"We're thrilled to be part of the Mackintosh festival because we are really great fans of Margaret and Frances," says Adele.

So was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who famously said of his wife: "Margaret has genius, I only have talent." Praise indeed.

Tickets for the Glasgow Girls of Garnethill walks on October 11 and 26 cost £10, from www.womenslibrary.org.uk

angela.mcmanus@ eveningtimes.co.uk