Revealed: Glasgow’s unbuilt cathedral

Revealed: Glasgow’s unbuilt cathedral

By Ronnie Convery

New research has unveiled plans were drawn up almost 200 years ago for a magnificent Catholic cathedral for Glasgow on the site of the current St Mary’s church in Calton.

Shown here for the first time, the planned cathedral façade would have been one of the most dramatic in the city.

The discovery was made by Archdiocesan archivist Dr Mary McHugh after extensive work on original papers revealed a design for a striking façade for a St Mary’s ‘cathedral’ which was never built.

Mary McHugh’s investigations suggest Church authorities in the 1840s planned to use the Calton building as the mother church of the Archdiocese as and when the hierarchy would be restored to Scotland (which happened 30 years later.)

Both the Glasgow Herald and The Tablet record the opening of St Mary’s on the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August 1842.

The language of the time is powerful: “The solemn service was performed by Bishop John Murdoch [coadjutor-bishop of the Western District of Scotland], assisted by the Revv Messrs Bremner, Wallace, Smith and Stewart; and the sermon preached by Father Matthew, the temperance campaigner, in the presence of the Vicar-Apostolic of the Eastern District of Scotland, Bishop Gillies…”

Given the Calton’s traditions over the years, many will smile wryly at the choice of a temperance campaigner as the opening day preacher!

The Tablet describes St Mary’s as follows: “A simple Grecian oblong, 128 feet by 72 (exclusive of the porch and vestries), surmounted by a pediment, from which rises a belfry, containing a bell, equal in size but superior in tone to most of the City churches. The exterior is plain, bold, and massive, approaching to the monastically austere.”

The description continues: “The interior contrasts with the exterior: here all is rich and glowing; it forms (including the organ gallery) an area of 122 feet by 66; accommodating about 1400 persons...The whole interior is painted in oil.”

St Mary’s was altered in 1877. The Scottish Catholic Directory commented: “The Church has lately received very material improvements under the direction of Mr Goldie, of the firm of Messrs Goldie & Childe, London. The former gloomy and confined sanctuary is now replaced by a chancel, 35 feet by 30; a sacristy, 30 by 15, fitted up with every convenience has been formed; and instead of side altars hidden away below the galleries, there are now two very beautiful side chapels.”

It appears to have been the extensive changes of 1877 which led the St Mary’s Centenary History of 1942 to misidentify Mr Goldie of the firm Goldie & Childe as the original architect of St Mary’s.

Yet as Dr McHugh points out after her research, “in 1842 when the church was opened, George Goldie would only have been 13 and his partner Charles Edwin Child(e) was not yet born!”  

So who built St Mary’s? And was it really planned as a Cathedral as the Catholic community awaited the restoration of the hierarchy?

Mary said: “The identity of the original 1842 architects/builders of St Mary’s was an apparently insoluble mystery until a contemporary account of the opening in 1842 was identified in The Tablet. After a detailed description of St Mary’s, in its final paragraph, the Tablet article comments that the building has been erected under the superintendence of ‘Messrs Foreman and Cameron’. The cost was about £10,000.

“The Dictionary of Scottish Architects describes Foreman and Cameron as a Glasgow architectural practice, which existed only between 1842–1844.

“The firm’s apparently short life-span helps to explain why they almost completely disappeared from view, and were not around to contribute to subsequent repairs and renovations of St Mary’s.”

St Mary’s roof and ceiling collapsed in the mid-1860s, and Goldie is credited with having introduced side-galleries to provide the necessary support. It is one of the quirks of history that St Andrew’s, built with galleries (of which the only remaining evidence is now the organ loft and the missing staircase where the ‘shop’ now is), had its galleries removed by the architect Peter Paul Pugin, whereas the opposite happened in St Mary’s.

But, and perhaps most intriguingly, Foreman and Cameron, apart from St Mary’s itself, have left one other legacy, which is a signed design dated 11 July 1842 and held by the Royal Incorporation of British Architects (RIBA) for the west elevation of ‘a Cathedral’.

So, was St Mary’s intended to be the Catholic Cathedral in Glasgow?

Mary explained: “St Mary’s is orientated East-West, and has a west front as Cathedrals tend to have. St Andrew’s in Clyde Street is on a north-south axis facing the river, so the ‘cathedral’ design was not intended for St Andrew’s.

“And St Mary’s was built with a burial vault/crypt which St Andrew’s lacked. The builder of St Andrew’s, Rev (later Bishop) Andrew Scott, who was Vicar-Apostolic of the Western District until his resignation in 1845 and death in 1846, and Bishop John Murdoch, are, in fact, buried in the crypt in St Mary’s.”

Mary told Flourish: “There is increasingly strong evidence that St Mary’s was built to be the Cathedral. So, when on August 14th 2009, St Mary’s was created Pro-Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Glasgow and served as Pro-Cathedral until 10th April 2011 when St Andrew’s was reopened after renovation, St Mary’s perhaps got the opportunity to more closely fulfil what seems to have been in 1842 its originally intended destiny.”

Filipino devotions in Glasgow

By Brian Swanson

The Pope’s plea to pray the Rosary throughout May to end the pandemic held special significance for the Glasgow Filipino community.

Before Covid restrictions were imposed the community, based in St Columba’s Woodside, would honour Our Lady with the Flowers of May festival which includes praying the Rosary daily and culminating in a colourful procession in which a statue of their patron Our Lady of the Rosary of Manoag is carried at the front of the crowd.

Instead organisers opted for a scaled down version of the event this year.

Rene Galpay, from the community said: “This time we asked young women and children to dress in white and walk to the altar offering flowers to Our Lady.

“We were delighted with the response and it was especially good to see so many parishioners join in our celebrations.”

Bishops’ new care of creation office

By Brian Swanson

Inspired by Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ landmark encyclical letter on care for the environment, Scotland’s bishops have unveiled a bold new plan to help parishes dramatically reduce their carbon footprint with the launch of a Care of Creation Office.

Headed by Father Gerard Maguiness, General Secretary of the Bishops’ Conference, its task will be to take a co-ordinated approach to advise and encourage dioceses and parishes to find ways of moving toward carbon neutrality.

In the coming months it is thought that a series of audits will take place as a first step to gauging the scale of the challenge.

It comes as speculation grows that His Holiness is planning to attend COP26 in Glasgow in November.

Hopes of the first visit of a Pope to Scotland since Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 were boosted by President Biden’s climate change envoy, John Kerry, who revealed last month that Pope Francis intends to come to Glasgow in November.

Speaking after a private meeting with Pope Francis, and without revealing further details of their conversation, Mr Kerry told Vatican Media: “His will be a very important voice leading up to and through the Glasgow conference, which I believe he is planning to attend.”

Referring to Laudato Si, which inspired Scotland’s bishops to set up the new office Mr Kerry said: “It is really a very, very powerful document, eloquent and morally very persuasive. The Pope is one of the great voices of reason and compelling moral authority on the subject of the climate crisis.”

Bishop William Nolan (pictured right), the Bishop of Galloway and President of the National Justice and Peace Commission said: “God has honoured us by giving humanity the task of being a co-operator in the work of creation. We hope our lives enhance and build up that creation, and pray that the meeting of world leaders in Glasgow later this year bear fruit for our planet.”

The announcement of the new office coincided with a National Pastoral letter from Scotland’s Bishops distributed to all parishes on the theme of caring for creation.

The letter reads: “God’s creation is a great gift to all humanity, and humanity itself is an integral part of that creation. We are blessed by having the earth for our common home. It is a place of great beauty, teeming with life of all kinds, a world full of wonderful resources which enable us not only to live but to enhance our way of life. In nature, God’s glory is revealed for all to see.

“The earth, our common home, is given to all of humanity and its resources are not just for us to use now but to be preserved and passed on to future generations.”

Ordinariate has been given its own special tartan

A new tartan has been produced for one of Scotland’s newest Catholic groups.

The Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walshingham was established by Pope Benedict XVI to welcome convert Anglicans and Episcopalians to the Catholic Church while allowing them to continue to use some of the liturgies which form part of their heritage.

With several priests working in Scotland, they thought it was time to “inculturate” with a tartan of their own!

Head of the Ordinariate, Mgr Keith Newton is seen here proudly wearing an Ordinariate tartan scarf, a gift from the Ordinariate in Scotland, standing outside the door, not of “Number 10” but of 24 Golden Square in London, the HQ of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Fr Len Black, one of the Ordinariate’s Scottish clergy said: “It has been a long, but very successful project to have the tartan woven. First, there was our Kickstarter campaign which was launched on All Saints’ Day 2010, ending on St Andrews Day, a month later. Our intention was to raise £2,700, but in fact we raised more than £4,700, much to our great surprise.

“The events of the past year meant inevitable delays in producing the tartan. But now it’s here and the various garments ordered are now being made up. Soon they will be winging their way to those who made pledges to support our appeal. We are most grateful to all who supported us”.

Now, however, the Ordinariate tartan is available to everyone through the website www.ordinariate-tartan.com where you can buy either a length of tartan or various products from scarfs to waistcoats to ladies wraps and ties, all beautifully made.

Fr Len added: “The design of the Ordinariate Tartan takes inspiration from the Coats of Arms of each of the three Ordinariates and also from the symbolism used in the design of vestments for the clergy of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

“The four principle liturgical colours of the church year, green, white, red and purple, have been included, with green being the dominant colour as it is used for most of the year”.

You can find out more about the Ordinariate in Scotland at www.ordinariate.scot and about the tartan, the story behind its design, what each of the colours means as well as placing orders, by visiting www.ordinariate-tartan.com