Cathcart Old Parish Church photographed by Duncan Brown.
The church was designed by James Dempster and built in 1831. It replaced an earlier building erected in 1707 and rebuilt in 1744, which had fallen into disrepair. The church stood just outside the village and in the 1850s was described as "an elegant building in the modern Gothic style of architecture. It is surrounded by a fine burial-ground, quiet and secluded...". The west front survives at the beginning of the 21st century, but the rest of the building was demolished in 1931.
Records show that there has been a church in Cathcart since the 9th century. Some of the burials in the graveyard date to the 17th century, including the tomb of the Polmadie Martyrs (Robert Thom, Thomas Cook and John Urie) shot by soldiers in 1685 for supporting the Covenanters' cause.
Duncan Brown (1819-1897) was a talented amateur photographer whose work documents aspects of Glasgow life from the 1850s until the 1890s.
Reference: 33
Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow School of Art Archive
Keywords:
Cathcart Old Parish Church, cemeteries, children, Church of Scotland, churches, Covenanters, graveyards, Martyrs' Tomb, Polmadie Martyrs, women