Old Cathcart Parish Church And Churchyard, Carmunnock Road, Glasgow

The Old Cathcart Parish Church and churchyard occupy a significant historical site in Glasgow. The churchyard contains the ruined remains of a former parish church, largely dating to the 18th and 19th centuries, and is notable for its diverse collection of monuments and associated structures.

The original church, likely designed by James Dempster between 1830 and 1831, was superseded by a new church built nearby in 1929, outside the churchyard boundaries. Today, only the church tower (without a roof) and the west gable remain. The tower is constructed in a Gothic style with hood-moulded, pointed-arched openings, some of which are traceried, and wide-splayed window reveals where the glazing has been lost. The tower rises in three diminishing stages and features diagonal buttresses topped with crenellated parapets. The construction is of stugged ashlar with polished dressings. A blocked north-facing doorway has mask label stops, while a corresponding south-facing opening retains the upper portion of a timber panel with a painted inscription.

Several impressive aisles, or mausolea, are situated within the churchyard. “The Brown of Langside Aisle,” dating to 1782, is attributed to the style of Robert Adam. It is neo-classical in design, with a square plan featuring elevations with progressively recessed wall planes, each containing a round-arched opening (blind, except on the south side). The round arches are framed by recessed margins and incorporate patera in their spandrels, with angle pilaster strips. An inscription panel is located on the south side, and the remains of broken bases are visible at the angles. Constructed from polished yellow ashlar, it is now accessed by a modern wrought-iron gate. It is roofless, though a dome or pyramidal roof may have originally been intended.

The “Gordon of Aikenhead” aisle, located to the southwest of the church, is a small, simple Gothic chapel dating from the mid to later 19th century. A doorway is set in the west gable, with pointed-arched windows on the flanks. It has stone-bracketed eaves and a steeply pitched stone-slab roof and is constructed from polished ashlar, now heavily overgrown.

A third aisle, anonymous in origin and located to the south of the church, is a mid-19th century circular miniature "tempietto" in a Romanesque style. It features a south-facing doorway, shafts with scalloped capitals, a chevroned arch, a continuous string at the impost level, beak-head detailing at the eaves, and a cross finial. The construction is of polished ashlar.

The churchyard also contains a variety of monuments, including a pair of late medieval recumbent grave slabs with unusual longitudinal shafting, inscribed with swords and spears. A 1685 martyrs’ slab is raised on a 19th-century plinth and is enclosed by low wrought-iron railings. Significant monuments include an Egypto-Greek monument to John MacIntyre, the builder, designed by Alexander Thomson in 1867, and a family monument to David Thomson (1831-1910), an architect. Two 18th-century headstones are decorated with cloth-trimming shears, and the Thomson of Cemphill family has a tall and decorative round-arched mort-safe.

The boundary walls are constructed of ashlar-coped rubble and include gateways to Carmunnock Road and Kirkmailung Road. The later gateway features massive, rusticated ashlar piers with cast-iron lamp brackets and wrought-iron gates. The churchyard has been extended twice to the south in the 19th century, creating lower levels. A watch house, built into the boundary wall to the southwest of the church, has a hood-moulded Gothic-arched doorway and is likely contemporary with the church, incorporating stugged ashlar and polished dressings.