Glasgow's fine mediaeval cathedral is situated well away from the present day city centre. It was founded in ancient times in the high ground above the old town, alongside the Molendinar Burn in Townhead.
Glasgow Cathedral
The city's ancient cathedral is dedicated to Glasgow's patron saint, St Mungo (or Kentigern) who established a church on the site at the beginning of the 7th century and was buried there around the year 612.
Map of Glasgow Cathedral, 1547
The map above is a Victorian representation of the area surrounding the Cathedral in 1547.
It was created from original records by Sir James Marwick who was Town Clerk of Glasgow from 1873 to 1903.
The area to the east of the Cathedral, shown on the map as Wester Craigs, was to be later developed as the site of the Glasgow Necropolis.
Map of High Street, Glasgow, 1547
High Street is shown in the map as "Street from Mercat Cross to Metropolitan Church".
Grayfriars Wynd and Blackfriars Wynd, 1807
The sites of the old monastic communities were still remembered in street names a few centuries after their disappearance.
St Mungo Museum & Visitor Centre
In 1993 at a cost of over £4 million, the St Mungo Museum of Religious Art was opened to the public. The architects, Page and Park of Glasgow created a 5 storey stone museum on the site of the ancient bishop's castle.
It was designed in period style to fit in to the Cathedral precinct. The main attraction for a long period was Salvador Dali's masterpiece "Christ of St John of the Cross", which was returned to the refurbished Kelvingrove Art Gallery in 2006.
Glasgow's oldest house, Provand's Lordship, is situated on the west side of Castle Street, close to the Cathedral. It was built in 1471 as part of the Hospital of St. Nicholas and is all that now remains of that institution. Provand's Lordship
The house was owned by Provand's Lordship Society until 1978, when the City Council agreed to take it over to relieve the Society of the financial burden. The Council carried out an extensive £200,000 refurbishment which was completed in June 1983, after which the building was opened to the public as a museum.
Domestic architecture of the 15th century was purely functional and was not regarded as an art form. The mediaeval churches aspiring to the heavens where in a different category altogether, with designs which were open to continental influences from pre-Reformation Catholic Europe. In 1993 a second phase of renovation commenced, to restore the ancient cloisters and re-create the ancient St Nicholas physic garden to the rear. The work was completed in May 1995 at a cost of £175,000. There is now a covered walkway at the north and west walls, as well as cobbled pathways through the beautiful herb garden.
As well as the cathedral, there are other churches, both active and redundant, in Townhead, which is situated immediately north of the Merchant City, with the M8 motorway running straight through it. St Mungo's Church, Parson Street, Townhead
St Mungo's Church, which is dedicated to the city's patron saint, was completed in 1869 to the designs of George Goldie. It was built in an unusual Gothic style with an attractive cream sandstone and features a row of pointed arches along the frontage. Inside the church you can see some of Goldie's elaborate sculptural additions and finishes.
When he first came to Glasgow, Charles Eyre's title was titular Bishop of Anazarba, Apostolic Delegate for Scotland and Administrator Apostolic of the Western District.
Windows at St Mungo's Church, Parson Street, Townhead
Parson Street was the birthplace of Glasgow's most famous architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, in 1868.
Mackintosh assisted in the design of Martyrs School, which was completed in 1898.
Martyrs School, Parson Street, Townhead
Barony Church, High Street
The Church of Scotland's Barony Church, which was dedicated in April 1889, replaced an earlier church situated just south of the Cathedral.
The new church, situated at the corner of High Street and Rottenrow, was designed by J.J. Burnett and J.A. Campbell in the Scottish vernacular style.
It is now used as a function hall by Strathclyde University, who have many buildings in the vicinity.
Glasgow Evangelical Church
The Glasgow Evangelical Church, formerly known as Barony North Church, is situated in the pedestrianised Cathedral Square, from which it took another of its previous titles, Cathedral Square UP Church.
One of Glasgow's recent architectural losses, Townhead Library, was situated in the shadow of a motorway flyover.
Townhead Library
It was fashioned as an Italianate pavilion by John Fairweather, who was later to specialise in cinemas and theatres. The reading room had a most attractive arched ceiling with rooflights, while the lending library had an ornate glass dome overhead.
The library was officially opened on 4th July, 1907 by Sir James Fleming.
1850's map of Townhead, Glasgow
Aerial view of Royal Infirmary, Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis
The present structure was built in the 12th and 13th centuries over a long number of years and is Glasgow's best example of the intricacies of mediaeval architecture. The cathedral was consecrated on 6th July 1197, during Bishop Joceline's term in office.
The See had been founded in 1115, with John Achaius being the first of 27 bishops until 1488 when Robert Blackadder became the first Archbishop of Glasgow. Pope Alexander VI had elevated the See of Glasgow to an Archdiocese on 9th October of that year. There followed 5 archbishops prior to the Reformation, overseeing the dioceses of Argyle and the Isles, Dunblane, Dunkeld and Galloway. The final pre-Reformation custodian was Archbishop James Beaton who fled to Paris in 1560, taking with him the Cathedral's relics and valuable ornamentation.
The Cathedral had been damaged at the height of Reformation fervour in 1560, but on 21st August 1574 Glasgow's citizens voluntarily subscribed for its repair.
There were a number of Protestant bishops until 1689 when Presbyterianism became the established religion of Scotland.
The Cathedral is shown as a Metropolitan Church, indicating Glasgow's status as a city with a Metropolitan Archbishop overseeing the surrounding dioceses.
The Archbishop lived in the castle nearby, which gave its name to today's Castle Street.
Quadrivium is Latin for "four ways", while the more popular Scots name for this crossroads was "Wyndeheid".
The brief history of the Glasgow Necropolis, shown below, has been extracted from The People's History of Glasgow, published in 1899.
The secular part of the city was based around the Mercat Cross, the present day Glasgow Cross.
This area is featured in my Merchant City page.
Glasgow's status as a pre-Reformation ecclesiastical centre is shown by the number of religous institutions to be found within such a small area.
Two religous orders, the Franciscan "Grayfriars" and the Dominican "Blakfriars", owned land and property in the area.
St Mary's Church, situated close to the Mercat Cross, had been built in 1525 but was destroyed by the reformers in 1570.
Following the turmoil of the reformation, the Dominicans did not return to Glasgow until the 1960's.
Glasgow's Dominican community has been based in St Columba's Church since 2005. St Columba's is an "A" listed building designed by Jack Coia around the time of the outbreak of World War II.
The house's current title dates from 1562 when Mary Queen of Scots granted the lands of Provand to William Baillie, a canon of the Cathedral. Baillie's possession of the house had been confirmed by Royal Charter by the Queen.
The outside of the house, with its 3 storey random rubble stonework is as much a museum piece as the artefacts within, as it gives us a rare insight into the domestic architecture of early Glasgow.
One of the garden walls features a very old sculpted Glasgow coat of arms (above); elsewhere in the cloisters the walls are adorned with the "Tontine Faces" recovered from the long demolished Town Hall in Trongate.
St Mungo's is different in style to most of Glasgow's later Victorian Catholic churches, which were commissioned by
Most Reverend Charles Eyre (right), who was consecrated to the See of Glasgow in 1869.
He assumed the office of Archbishop of Glasgow in 1878 following the restoration of the hierarchy in Scotland.
His favoured architects were Pugin & Pugin, who specialised in Italianate and Gothic styled churches.
Pugin & Pugin's Holy Cross Church on the south side is featured in my
Cathcart Circle Architecture site.
St Andrew's Roman Catholic Cathedral in Clyde Street, where Archbishop Eyre was based, is featured in my Merchant City page.
It was designed by John Honeyman (left) and completed in 1880. Honeyman was also responsible for the alterations of 1901.
It has a refreshingly original Italianate styling, completly different from any of the surrounding buildings, sitting neatly amidst the gardens of the square.
The library, like many of the churches in areas of depopulation, no longer had a sufficient population to support its original purpose. In this case however demolition, rather than renovation and conversion, was the preferred option and the library was pulled down in 1998.
I have featured two black and white photographs of the library's interior from 1907 in my Carnegie Libraries of Scotland web site.
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All original artwork, photography and text ©G.Blaikie 2002-2010 Contact: admin@scotcities.com
Unauthorised reproduction of any image on this website is not permitted.
