Symbolic of the love of God

ALLOA is the administrative centre of Clackmannanshire, Scotland’s smallest local authority area, which is set between the Forth and the Ochil Hills. Its main settlements are strung along the ‘Hillfoots’ – Menstrie, Alva, Alloa, Tillicoultry and Dollar. Between these characterful places and the Forth is good grain-growing land, under which were rich coal seams. Coal was mined to supply local industries, notably woollen manufacture, brewing, distilling and glass-making, and for export through Alloa. One of Scotland’s first horse-hauled railways was constructed to link coal mines to the port. The area was very prosperous from the 18th to the mid-20th century, when Alloa was second only to Edinburgh as Scotland’s principal centre of brewing.

All of this economic activity goes a long way to explaining the scale and magnificence of St Mungo’s Parish Church. It was built in 1816-19 to designs by James Gillespie Graham, then Scotland’s most fashionable church architect, and sits on the main road from Alloa to Stirling. The church was obviously intended to be seen from the river (a ‘sea mark’), as its striking steeple faces south. The steeple is modelled on that of the parish church of Louth, in Lincolnshire, which is set in a flat landscape, presumably to act as a landmark.

The present St Mungo’s replaced a church in Kirkgate, in a graveyard which is likely to have been formed when the first St Mungo’s church was built, presumably in the 12th or 13th century. Before the Reformation the parish belonged to the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, further up the river Forth. After the Reformation, in 1600, the parish of Alloa was united with that of the neighbouring parish of Tullibody, also with a church dedicated to St Mungo (built in 1149 by David I), and also historically the property of Cambuskenneth Abbey. What was probably the mediaeval parish church in Kirkgate was reconstructed in about 1681-83, with a handsome tower with an unusual slated spire. When the present St Mungo’s was completed in 1819 most of the old church was demolished, leaving the tower and spire. In the churchyard is a burial aisle of the earls of Mar, added after the Reformation when burial in churches was forbidden. This was remodelled in 1819 by James Gillespie Graham, as a mausoleum for the earls of Mar.

The new St Mungo’s was one of the finest Scots parish churches of its time. As it was built it had the pulpit on the north wall, with galleries on the other three walls. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries this typically Presbyterian layout was as in many Church of Scotland buildings, replaced by an arrangement derived from pre-Reformation practice, with a chancel at one end containing Communion Table and choir stalls, with pulpit, font, prayer desk and lectern on either side of the arch leading to the chancel. The interior of St Mungo’s was remodelled on those lines in 1936-37 by Leslie Grahame Thomson, in a style developed by Sir Robert Lorimer earlier in the 20th century. Thomson adapted a former vestibule and gallery area at the west end of the church to form a chancel with new pulpit, lectern and font. He retained the plaster vaulting of the 1819 building over the chancel, but replaced the main ceiling with a panelled wooden one. He also installed new pews facing the chancel. In 1966 Thomson added a new vestibule at the east end of the building. Over a number of years many fine stainedglass windows have been installed in the building. This fine building is the glory of Alloa, its splendid steeple a beacon as it was designed to be, symbolic of the love of God in this place.

This article appears in the February 2020 Issue of Life and Work

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