‘A choice area of pastoral land’

THE parish of Mearns lies to the south of Glasgow. When lowland Scotland was divided into parishes both for civil and religious purposes by David I in the 12thcentury, Mearns was a choice area of pastoral land, and was allocated to Roland of Mearns, mentioned as a witness to a donation made by Eschina, wife of Walter the Steward, to the Abbey of Paisley.

Roland must have been one of the Norman nobles brought up from the English court by David as part of his introduction of the feudal system. As late as the end of the 19thcentury the parish was described in Francis Groome’s Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotlandas: ‘It has always been distinguished for its fine pasture, and even in the present times of extended cultivation it is very largely devoted to sheep and dairy farming.’ In the early 19 thcentury John Wilson, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh and a notable literary figure of the time wrote under the pen-name ‘Christopher North’ of Mearns as ‘Fairest of Scotland’s thousand parishes – neither Highland or Lowland – but undulating – let us again use the descriptive word. – like the sea at sunset after a day of storms – yes, Heaven’s blessing be upon thee! Thou art indeed beautiful as of old’. Elsewhere he refers it as the ‘dear parish of Mearns’.

This idyllic pastoral scene began to be eroded in the early20th century, with the opening of the Caledonian Railway’s Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway, with stations at Whitecraigs and Patterton. A select suburb grew up at Whitecraigs before and after the First World War, and further south, from the 1930s the Broom Estate was developed by the Glasgow house-builders McTaggart and Mickel. It was the construction of that estate that led to the enlargement of the parish church as described below. In the later 1930s Glasgow Corporation built a sanatorium to the south of the church – Mearnskirk Hospital, initially for the treatment pf sufferers from tuberculosis. This closed as a hospital in the 1990s, and some of its buildings have been converted into flats as the nucleus of larger-scale housing development.

Mearns Parish Church is set on a hill on the edge of the select commuter suburb of Newton Mearns, south of Glasgow. To the north are the 1930s and later bungalows and villas while to the south one is almost in the country. The church building, however, still stands as a landmark, a link with worship and fellowship over many centuries. When as a teenager I began to explore on my bicycle, the areas round Cathcart, where I lived at that time, I clearly remember my first sight of this church, with its distinctive tower; indeed it was the first church I photographed, on my pre-war Brownie box camera.

The present Mearns Parish Church is in an ancient burial ground. The body of the building dates largely from 1755, but was enlarged in 1813. In1932 a vestry and session house – were added together with a chancel on the north wall. There are good stained-glass windows, some by Gordon Webster, a noted mid-20thcentury Scottish artist. The interior is light and graceful – aplace in which to encounter a loving God, as it has been for centuries.

Unusual features are the hollow gate-piers at the entrance to the churchyard, shelter for elders collecting offerings to succour the poor of the parish: the church building and the minister’s manse and stipend were the responsibility of the landowners of the parish. The tall bell and clock tower, with its ogee cap, is unusual in that it is narrower from back to front than from side to side. ¤