As promised a couple of weeks ago, here is a look at the Glasgow Necropolis (city of the dead) which sits on the hill to the east of Glasgow Cathedral - accessible via a bridge over the Molindinar Burn (now a busy road). The entrance to the bridge lies to the right of the cathedral as you face the front facade.
Before crossing the bridge, there are three monuments to note - a very poignant one, often covered in teddy bears and the like, dedicated to still-born babies; one to the fallen of the Korean War; and one to Glaswegian recipients of the Victoria Cross.
The bridge is known as the "Bridge of Sighs", as funeral processions obviously had to pass over it in order to reach the Necropolis.
Prior to the establishment of the cemetery in 1832, the hill had been the location for a Jewish burial ground, and the statue of the firebrand Protestant reformer John Knox was already glowering atop the column which dominates the skyline (erected in 1825). After the Pere Lachaise cemetery was built in Paris, demand for similar reached Britain. However, burial of the dead was the responsibility of local parish churches. Trouble was, in Glasgow, that fewer and fewer people were attending church. The business-minded Victorians also wanted to make a business out of death - burial for profit. A new Act of Parliament came in, in 1832, that permitted private enterprises to buy land and set up cemeteries - charging for plots, and extra for the biggest and most prominent ones. Glasgow was one of the first off the block in the whole of the UK, and the Necropolis was already open for business by 1833.
The site covers some 37 acres. The larger and more ornate tombs are clustered around the top of the hill, huddled round the Knox monument, and on the side of the hill overlooking the cathedral. As you go lower down the slopes - especially the side facing away from the cathedral - the graves are marked more with simpler headstones. There are a small number of graves of soldiers which fall under the auspices of the Commonwealth Graves Commission. Most of the fancier tombs mark the final resting places of mercantile individuals and their families, though there are a number of physicians here as well (Glasgow Royal Infirmary being nearby).
On the lower level of the slope, if you take the left hand path once you cross the bridge, you will see the grave of William Miller - the "Laureate of the Nursery". He wrote the popular children's rhyme about Wee Willie Winkie.
Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toon,
Upstairs, doonstairs, in his nicht goon,
Tirling at the windae, crying at the lock,
"Are the weans in bed yet, it's gone 10 o'clock"...
"Tirling" is an old Scots word for tapping. I am sure you can work out the rest. Miller first published this in 1841.
A couple more pictures of the Necropolis, before I tell you a tale from the other Glasgow Necropolis - the Southern one over the river Clyde in the Gorbals district.
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| This is the tomb of the actor-manager John Henry Alexander, of the Glasgow Theatre Royal. It depicts the proscenium arch of a theatre. |
The Gorbals Vampire...
The Southern Necropolis in the Gorbals, just south of the Clyde, was established in 1840. It sits on a flat piece of land and is marked by fewer large and grandiose tombs than its northern cousin.
In 1954, it became the location for a bizarre urban myth. A policeman patrolling on the evening of 23rd of September was alerted to a commotion in the cemetery and came upon hundreds of children - aged between 4 and 14. Many were armed with knives and makeshift cudgels. (This is Glasgow, after all...) When asked why they were there, these budding Van Helsings replied that they had come to destroy the "Vampire with the iron teeth". A story about this fiend had spread like wild fire through the schools of the area. Some of the kids had traveled for up to an hour to get here, so the tale had gone far and wide. Children continued to turn up, armed, for a couple more nights.
The authorities put this whole incident down to the influence of American horror comics, which were popular at the time. The publishers of these checked and found no reference to any specific iron-toothed vampire. However, conservative political do-gooders, the church, and the anti-anything-American Glaswegian communists all joined forces to campaign against these macabre but harmless publications and force their banning.
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