Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 565577
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/565577
Govan Parish Church, 866-868 Govan Road, 1883, R Rowand Anderson
Huge Early English Gothic, cruciform plan under a single roof, chancel extended, 1906. Plain exterior with cross finial and angled gable buttresses. Anderson had reverted, from the current hall-like church plan, to the traditional multi-cell cruciform plan, but put a new single roof over all. Splendid interior devised by the Rev. Dr John MacLeod, to provide a glorious traditional setting for worship. Anderson had made ample provision for stained glass, the major element in MacLeod's plans. Kerr windows, 1891 below the Choir Gallery; above, 1902, Heaton, Butler & Bayne, probably chosen by Commissioner R Malcolm Kerr. Steven (Bellahouston) Memorial Chapel; side windows, 1893, Burlison & Grylls; east window, 1894, Clayton & Bell. Baptistery windows, 1898, Shrigley & Hunt. MacLeod was dissatisfied with all their designs and finally prevailed on his original choice, Charles Eamer Kempe, who would normally only accept Episcopal commissions, to make the remainder of the church windows. Early Christian sculpture - best in Scotland. St Constantine's Sarcophagus, AD 576, decorated with interlace, beasts; buried in churchyard at the Reformation, discovered in 1885 and returned to the church. Pagan 'Sun Stone', a swastika and mounted bagpiper; 'Cuddy Stane', Jesus on an ass; Govan Cross Shaft, interlace and horseman, top missing; five Viking hog-backed tombstones; 17 Celtic stones, Celtic crosses added, adapted as gravestones, 17th, 18th centuries. All are now inside the church. Govan Old Parish Burying Ground, surrounding the church, the heart-shaped burying ground, containing 16th- to 19th-century monuments, clearly a location of rare antiquity.
Taken from "Greater Glasgow: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Sam Small, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
