[†] New church & hall, for United Presbyterian congregation
meeting in Wellington Place Academy, Commercial Road, 1856-57
£8,000 approx.
Burned out in 1965 and partially demolished
Drawings of preliminary schemes and as built in Mitchell; measured
drawings of 1893 by John G. Gillespie published in the Glasgow
Architectural Association Sketchbook vol.iv, Glasgow 1894, and more by
J. Gaff Gillespie in Barclay
Building Chronicle 1st April 1856 p.44, 1st January 1857 p.151 &
April 1857 p.189; J. Logan Aikman, Historical Notices of the United
Presbyterian Congregations in Glasgow, Glasgow 1875; Amelia; Memorial;
Gildard; APSD; Barclay*; Robert Small, History of the Congregations of
the United Presbyterian Church from 1733 to 1900, Edinburgh 1904,
vol.ii,
p.91; Law*; Hitchcock*; Stewart; J.M. Reid, Glasgow, London 1956*;
Worsdall; James Macaulay, 'Greek Thomson in Danger', Architectural
Review cxxxvi 1964*; Glasgow Herald 1st November 1965, 18th November
1965, 4th March 1966, 27th October 1967*; Francis Worsdall, 'The
Achievement of "Greek" Thomson', Scotland's Magazine, July
1966*; Crook*; McFadzean*; G&W*; Andrew Herron, Historical Directory
to Glasgow Presbytery, Glasgow 1984 (typescript in Mitchell); McKean*;
BofS; S&McK*; ATSN no.11 October 1994, no.12 January 1995*; Eric
Eunson, The Gorbals: An Illustrated History, Ochiltree 1996*;
Glendinning, MacInnes & MacKechnie, A History of Scottish
Architecture, Edinburgh 1996*; List
This was the first of what Henry-Russell Hitchcock described as “three
of the finest Romantic Classical churches in the world” designed by
Thomson. Congregation formed 1854 as a secession from the Hutchesontown
U.P. Church.
Following the induction of the first minister, the Revd
Robert T. Jeffrey, in 1856, work began on a tapering site directly
opposite the Caledonian Railway's South Side terminus, which had opened
in 1848. The hall seating 300 was completed December 1856; the church
for 1,150 sittings dedicated 22nd March 1857 and decorated internally by
Thomson, who was an elder of the congregation and worshipped there until
his death; he is said to have either designed or chosen the communion
plate and there was a Thomson family pew. In his letter to John Honeyman
of 2nd November 1876 supporting his nomination as a Fellow of the Royal
Institute of British Architects, John Baird II surprisingly cited the
“Caledonia Road Church, Glasgow” in a list of seven buildings he
claimed responsibility for, but although the job was begun by Baird
& Thomson it was completed by A. & G. Thomson.
Thomas Gildard
wrote that
“nearly midway on the western face of [the] tower is a
boldly-designed window which, when the works of Thomson were few, I
looked upon as the grandest individual architectural mere part that I
had ever seen either on paper or in execution. It is not a two-light
window, but a one-light window divided into two by a pilaster with antae
supporting a cornice which serves as a transom. This pilaster, with ante
and cornice within a magnificent architrave, with frieze and a cornice
supported by trusses, is characterised no less by great power and beauty
than by novelty.”
Congregation dissolved 1962 and the building sold
for £3,700 by the Glasgow Presbytery of the Church of Scotland to
Glasgow Corporation, which then neglected it: “It is in a shocking
mess,” Francis Worsdall reported to Mrs Stewart, 2nd August 1965.
“Vandals
and a scrap merchant had broken in and not a single piece of metal
remains. The organ has been wrecked - much to the disgust of an
organ-builder friend of mine, for it was a good instrument. The lamps
had all gone. I was hoping to have rescued them from the wreck. I did
manage to save the urn which stood in a niche on the gallery staircase.
It had been smashed into about 50 pieces...”
After the arson which
gutted the church 30th October 1965, the Corporation recommended
demolition; following protests - in particular from Henry-Russell
Hitchcock writing to the Glasgow Herald in March 1966 that “it is
without question the most remarkable and the most distinguished
ecclesiastical edifice of the high Victorian decades” - the ruin was
retained but the east and west walls were partly taken down and
stonework repairs made in cement by Sir Frank Mears & Partners;
adjacent tenements by Thomson demolished 1972-73; roof taken
off campanile 1993.
Andor Gomme wrote in 1968 that
“it is one of
Glasgow's greatest buildings - indeed one of the greatest
nineteenth-century buildings anywhere; yet, in a way only too
characteristic of Glasgow, the church, after years of ill-treatment
amounting to dereliction, has in 1965 been, almost casually, gutted by
fire and the superbly detailed roof and interior destroyed... in almost
any other country than our own, so great a work of art would call out
enthusiastic and complete restoration as a matter of course.”
