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Queen's Park U.P. Church, Langside Road, Glasgow
†New church and hall, for Queen's Park United Presbyterian Church
congregation, 1868-69
Builder: John McIntyre
£6,922:6:2d (including architects' fee of £314:5:0d)
Destroyed by enemy action, 24th March 1943.
Perspective (damaged) at GSA; measured drawings by A. Rollo 1899
& John Jeffrys 1930 at RCAHMS; drawing of the entrance by William J.
Anderson in private collection: this was published as the frontispiece
of his Architectural Studies in Italy, Glasgow 1890, as Anderson's
measured drawings of the church, made in 1887, subsequently lithographed
and now lost, won him the first Alexander Thomson Travelling
Studentship.
Building News 7th February 1868 p.91 & 11th September 1868;
British Architect 1st May 1874, p.282*; J. Logan Aikman, Historical
Notices of the United Presbyterian Congregations in Glasgow, Glasgow
1875; Memorial; Building News 13th April 1888* & 27th April 1888*;
Gildard; APSD; Evening Times 9th October 1893; Architecture, i, 1896,
pp.58-60 (Anderson's drawing of entrance)*; Barclay*; Builder 31st
December 1910*; Queen's Park East United Free Church Glasgow Jubilee
Book 1867-1917, Glasgow 1918*; Glasgow Herald 22nd December 1924*;
Andrew L. Drummond, The Church Architecture of Protestantism, Edinburgh
1934*; Glasgow Herald 25th March 1943*; British Weekly 27th May 1943;
Law*; Stewart; Francis Worsdall, '"Greek" Thomson', Scottish
Field, cxxiii, February 1962*; Worsdall; Crook*; G&W*; McFadzean*;
Frank Worsdall, The City That Disappeared, Glasgow 1981*; Michael
Donnelly, Glasgow Stained Glass, a preliminary study, Glasgow 1981; AA*;
McKean*; Sally Joyce Rush in S&McK*; Dominic d'Angelo in ATSN no.9
February 1994*, no.19 August 1997*; Glendinning, MacInnes &
MacKechnie, A History of Scottish Architecture, Edinburgh 1996*
Remembering
Queen's Park
Ian
Muir tells of his memories of Queen's Park.
"In
the course of my enquiries I was sent a photocopy of the ATS
Newsletter for February 1993 in which the Church is discussed. My
memory of the affair is of the thunderous A-A fire from batteries on top
of the Cushat Hill where there was a forces camp (above and nearer Busby
than what is now the Linn Cemetery), just across the Cart from our house
in Stamperland. Afterwards I was allowed out of bed to look out the
window, and - Frank Worsdall was right - the blaze DID light up the
whole of the South-side.
"As
I recall it though, only the Church itself was destroyed, the
single-storey part fronting Langside Drive and rounding the corner into
the Lane to the South remaining. It eventually housed government
offices, perhaps a Labour Exchange. Certainly, either when I sought
deferment from National Service in order to undergo my engineering
apprenticeship in Weir's at Cathcart or, five years later in 1955, when
I and was assembling the paperwork necessary to go to sea as an engineer
in the Merchant Navy, I had to present myself there to obtain what was
required.
"The
exterior was very shabby by then, painted in a dingy green, the interior
being a pale eau de nil, if I recall correctly. Eventually this
department moved out and as far as I can recall the building was unused
thereafter, becoming ever more derelict until demolished probably no
later than the mid-60s.
"I
can only emphasise what a shock the loss of Queen's Park Church was to
one wee boy. and how saddened I was in its last years to see the utter
decrepitude into which the remaining part had sunk."
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