Showing posts with label Glasgow Necropolis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glasgow Necropolis. Show all posts

Tuesday 21 September 2021

Skulferatu #44 - Glasgow Necropolis, Glasgow

 

I had never been to Glasgow Necropolis before this visit.  It’s one of these places I’ve always meant to go to, but for some reason I’d assumed it was miles out of Glasgow City Centre.  It is not.  It is only about a twenty-five minute walk from Queen Street Railway Station.  So, after deciding that I had to explore more of Glasgow, I made my way up there.  On reaching Glasgow Cathedral I crossed over the Bridge of Sighs, so called because of the countless number of funeral processions that crossed over it, and made my way over into the cemetery.

 

The Bridge of Sighs leading into Glasgow Necropolis.  A photo showing the bridge that leads into the Necropolis with a hill and tombs in the background.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
The Bridge of Sighs leading into Glasgow Necropolis

 

The graveyard is quite spectacular with its huge monuments to many eminent Victorians, most of whom no-one remembers now.  Such is the way; we are all soon forgotten.  In a hundred years from now only a handful of us will be remembered and most of us won’t even merit a footnote in the history books written about our era…but I digress. 

 

On my wanders around I passed a memorial to William Miller.  The name meant nothing to me, but the inscription enlightened me that he was the author of Wee Willie Winkie and that is a nursery rhyme that I, along with many others, remember from our childhood.  Well, the first verse anyway, I don’t think the nursery rhymes books I had went any further than that verse, which went –

 

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,

Upstairs and downstairs in his night-gown,

Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,

Are the children all in bed, for now it’s eight o’clock?

 

This is actually a pretty anglicised version compared to the original, which also gives the children’s bedtime as being a bit later, but then maybe the kids in Victorian era Glasgow got to stay up late, who knows?  Anyway, it goes -

 

 Wee Willie Winkie rins through the town,

Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-gown,

Tirling at the window, crying at the lock,

Are the weans in their bed, for it’s now ten o’clock?

 

As a child I always thought this rhyme was about a flasher.  I assume because Willie and Winkie were two words that I knew as meaning penis.  Also, because in the nursery rhymes book I had, Willie Winkie was depicted in his long night gown and flashers, we were always told, wore long raincoats, so the two somehow became intertwined.  Ah, those innocent days back in the 1970s.

 

Memorial to William Millar, author of Wee Willie Winkie.  The photo shows a gravestone type memorial with an image of William Millar in the centre.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Memorial to William Millar, author of Wee Willie Winkie

 

I then made my way round and up to the top of the hill.  It is here that one can find some of the more spectacular monuments in the Necropolis, along with the most Glaswegian looking Jesus I’ve ever seen.

 

Archibald Douglas Monteath Mausoleum - a photo of a large and ornate building that looks like an old style church from Jerusalem or some other place in the Holy Land.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Archibald Douglas Monteath Mausoleum

 

View over gravestones and memorials - the photo shows in the foreground the statue of a sitting woman looking up to the sky.  Part of her face has been chipped off.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
View over gravestones and memorials

 

A photo showing various gravestones, monuments and memorials in Glasgow Necropolis.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
View over gravestones and memorials

 

A photo of the view to top of Glasgow Necropolis with lots of ornate tombs and a statue of  John Knox in the distance.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
View to top of Necropolis and John Knox statue

 

A photo of the ornate tomb of John Henry Alexander – Proprietor and manager of the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Tomb of John Henry Alexander – Proprietor and manager of the Theatre Royal, Glasgow

 

Detail from tomb of John Henry Alexander.  A photo of a carving of a face and musical instruments with a banner stating 'comedy' at the side.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Detail from tomb of John Henry Alexander

 

A photo of three carved saintly figures on a tomb - they have been spray painted a yellow/gold colour.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Carved saintly figures on tomb - spray painted

 

a photo showing a view of Glasgow Cathedral from the Necropolis.  The cathedral is in a half frame of trees growing in and around the Necropolis.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
View of Glasgow Cathedral from the Necropolis

 

Tombs on the top of the hill - a photo of three of the more elaborate tombs sitting on top of the hill at Glasgow Necropolis.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Tombs on the top of the hill

 

A photo of three marble angels in a tombstone.  they appear to be grieving for the loss of those buried within the tomb.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Angels grieving the loss of some Victorian worthy

 

Photo of a carving of the head of Jesus in the top centre of a gravestone.  His nose is chipped.  “It is finished.” Hear him cry, Learn of Jesus Christ to die. Burial place of Isaac and Mary Blackwood. Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
“It is finished.” Hear him cry, Learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Burial place of Isaac and Mary Blackwood

 

Lamb of God - a photo of a statue of a lamb sitting on top of a gravestone.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Lamb of God

 

Glasgow Necropolis stands in an area of land that was originally called Craig’s Park, but which after being planted with Fir trees in the 1700s was then called (roll of drums) Fir Park.  The statue of John Knox, at the top of the hill, was erected in 1825, prior to the area becoming a cemetery.  Glasgow Necropolis was officially opened in 1833 as a place for public interment, though a small Jewish Cemetery had been established in the lower grounds in 1832. Many of the great and the good of Victorian Glasgow are buried here with ostentatious tombs or gravestones marking their burial plots, though there are also several thousand unmarked graves of the less well known or celebrated.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on today’s walk in a gap in a wall overlooking the lower grounds of the Necropolis.

 

Skulferatu #44 - a photo of a small ceramic skull being held in a hand with gravestones, grass and trees in the background.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #44

 

Photo shows Skulferatu #44, a small, ceramic skull,  in gap in the wall at Glasgow Necropolis. Ivy hangs down the side of the wall.  Photo by Kevin Nosferatu for The Skulferatu Project.
Skulferatu #44 in gap in wall at Glasgow Necropolis

 

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #44
Map showing location of Skulferatu #44

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.863343

Longitude -4.232009

 

I used the following sources for information on Glasgow Necropolis –

 

Sketches of Glasgow Necropolis

By George Blair

1857

 

The Peoples History of Glasgow

By John K McDowall

1899

 

The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes

Edited by Iona and Peter Opie

Oxford University Press

1992

 

Wikipedia – Glasgow Necropolis

Wikipedia - Glasgow Necropolis

 

Article and photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.