John R Hume considers the gifts and beauty of a church in the east end of Glasgow.

SERIES

FROM the mid-18th century areas to the east of Glasgow city centre were developed for industrial purposes, especially the mining of coal, and ironworking.

Hand-loom weaving was also introduced.

The Shettleston area was served by a ‘chapel of ease’ of the Barony from 1788, and this became the church of a parish formed in 1847. This included the villages of Parkhead, Carntyne, Millerston and Tollcross as well as Shettleston itself.

In the later 19th century Parkhead Forge grew into one of the largest enterprises in western Scotland, and many houses were built in the parish. Shops, churches and schools followed. Between 1891 and 1901 the population of Shettleston more than doubled.

It was in this context that what is now Shettleston New Parish Church was built.

Initially this was an Extension charge of the Free Church of Scotland, with a hall opened in 1897. The church itself was not completed until 1901 (after the union of the Free and United Presbyterian churches in 1900) as Eastbank United Free Church.

Early in the 21st century the Presbytery of Glasgow sought to rationalise church provision in east end.

By then there was a linkage between Carntyne Old Parish Church and Eastbank. Carntyne Old was a former Free church, and the linkage had proved a very amicable one.

Eventually the congregations resolved to unite, worshipping in the Eastbank building, renamed Shettleston New. With a large supermarket facing the back of the church, the united congregation improved the halls and formed a café facing the supermarket. This has been a great success, and a programme of repairs to the church building is now nearing completion.

This brings me, at last, to the red sandstone church building, which is of Scottish national importance.

As my drawing shows from the outside it is a fine early 20th-century church, with good ‘Arts and Crafts’ detailing. Its tiled steeple is both elegant and a notable landmark.

The architect was W G Rowan, who was for many years in the partnership of McKissack and Rowan.

From the late 1880s he began to design churches on his own, with increasing confidence. His largest were the former Wynd Free Church, Gorbals and Trinity United Presbyterian Church, Pollokshields, both now demolished. The survivors, St Margaret’s, Tollcross and Shettleston New, are both of exceptional quality. The interior of St Margaret’s has been much altered, but that of Shettleston New retains its unique quality. Its interior is uniquely glorious.

The most unusual and dramatic feature is the panelled wooden ceiling, painted with the Te Deum. The elegant pine gallery fronts are enlivened by delightful carved panels, all different. The fine pulpit and organ case are set in panelling of a rich, reddish colour and there is a superb massive ‘Arts and Crafts’ dark-stained oak Communion table.

In this space we are not invited to say ‘how clever the architect has been’, but rather ‘how great God is.’ Over all is the Te Deumroof, and the Communion Table is unequivocally a table, a place for sharing a meal. The pulpit is clearly a place for reading and preaching the Word. This is indisputably a church for Reformed worship, but also a place in which grace, beauty, love and caring are seen to be integral to worship, a place for the worship of God with all our senses.

This is to my mind one of four outstanding ‘Arts and Crafts’ churches in Scotland. The others are Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Queen’s Cross Church, Glasgow, W D McLennan’s St Matthew’s Church of the Nazarene, Paisley and the Chalmers Memorial Church, Port Seton, by Sydney Mitchell. All are in their own ways remarkable, but for me Shettleston New is unique in the sense of worship it engenders.