An Edinburgher visits Glasgow = By Dale Finlayson

Three times in recent months, the Glasgow events group has arranged visits in Glasgow that tempted even the most hidebound Edinburgher to cross over to the other side of the country.

The first was to Govan Old Parish Church, which Mary Jo Bone-Castleton had arranged a visit to many years ago. Since then it has been redesigned and given new exhibits and explanatory storyboards. Although the present church dates from the late 1880s, a church on this site beside the River Clyde has existed for at least 1500 years, although its importance has been eclipsed by Iona and St Andrews. No longer a parish church, it is now owned by the Govan Heritage Trust and is the home of the Govan Stones dating from the 9^th to 11^th centuries and to the ancient Kingdom of Strathclyde: hogback Viking-age carved stones, intricately carved upright crosses, and the Govan sarcophagus, all burial monuments found in the historic graveyard where archaeological treasures are still being unearthed. It is also the home of the Russian Orthodox Community of St Kentigern. A must for a visit! It will be open for an Archaeological Open Day on Saturday, 20 September, with a guided tour of the churchyard excavations at 12 noon, but visits & tours can be arranged at other times.

The Glasgow Women’s Library:  Three of us from Edinburgh joined others from Glasgow for a tour led by Gabrielle Macbeth, the library’s Volunteer Coordinator. The GWL is the only accredited museum in the UK that records women’s lives, histories, and achievements. It is a library that lends books, an archive that collects evidence of women’s culture and achievements, and a museum that preserves artifacts of women’s lives; it works with women artists and exhibits their work; and it is a space for learning, providing literacy and numeracy classes as well as creative writing classes and events and materials that spark the imagination. Everything in its collections and library has been donated, except for a rare badge awarded to a Glasgow suffragette when she emerged from prison, which the Library fund-raised to purchase for £42,000! Unfortunately, it is kept securely in a safe in the archive room, so we didn’t see it. The Library was originally set up in 1987 as an arts organisation called Women in Profile to ensure that women’s culture was represented during Glasgow’s year as European City of Culture in 1990. Today the Library is located in its fifth “home”, in the Bridgeton area of Glasgow, in what had been the Bridgeton Library, a former Carnegie library. A fascinating visit and a wonderful resource for anyone interested in women’s history and culture in Scotland.

Our visit was preceded by lunch in the West Brewery, an artisan brewery whose lagers and wheat beers are in accordance with the German purity law of 1516.  The brewery is part of the “lifestyle village” of Templeton on the Green, located in the magnificent former Templeton carpet factory by Glasgow Green.

The Ramshorn Cemetery:  This was a surprising discovery, located in the center of the Merchant City, a 10-minute walk from Queen Street station. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries it was the burial place for the great and not-always-good of Glasgow – lord provosts, tobacco lords, industrialists, bankers, and, of course, ministers – many of whom are commemorated in Glasgow’s street names. It is next to the former St David’s Church, now owned by Strathclyde University, as is the cemetery. Most of its denizens were good Calvinists, so there are no elaborate headstones or memorials such as you find in Victorian cemeteries like the Glasgow Necropolis. Large engraved stones on the walls, rather than bearing an individual’s date of death, note the owner and the date of purchase of the “lair” in front of it; no stone could be more than 6” above the ground, so burial stones lie flat and most are now covered with grass. A lair could be sold on and might in fact not contain the remains of the individual named on the wall! One notable individual buried there is David Dale, the founder of the mills at New Lanark and the father-in-law of Robert Owen, founder of the utopian community of New Harmony, Indiana. Another – of interest to those in the Glasgow reading group who are reading “The Secrets of Blythswood Square” – was Pierre Emile L’Angelier, the alleged victim of Madeleine Smith. At least one of those buried there became the victim of the “resurrectionists” or body snatchers that supplied the anatomists at the nearby medical school. Our tour was led by one of the Friends of Ramshorn Cemetery who for the first time this summer provided tours and are researching the history of and burials in the cemetery.

I’m looking forward to future visits to Glasgow!