(Former) Caledonia Road Church, by Alexander "Greek" Thomson (1817-1875)

(Former) Caledonia Road Church

Alexander "Greek" Thomson (1817-1875)

1855

Glasgow

This former Caledonia Road United Presbyterian Church is described on the Canmore site (in a passage taken from Sam Small's book) as a "mere fragment of Thomson's first large church, burnt out in 1965." But, as the passage continues, it still has its "magnificent tower, unadorned apart from the bell openings and clock on top" beside its Greek temple-like body. [Commentary continues below.]

Photograph by Rab Lawrence (cropped here).Image downloaded by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Image kindly released on Flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)licence .

We also learn from the Canmore site that this was where Thomson himself worshipped, and that he became an elder here, "declaring later that Religion had been the soul of Art from the beginning. A classicist, he argued in his lectures and publications that Gothic was a barbarian interloper." It is sad to see the church so much in need of restoration. Robert Crawford adds it to the several "best buildings" of Thomson's to have suffered sad fates (287), and it has been on the "Buildings at Risk" register for Scotland for years; but perhaps there is hope for it yet.

Related Material

St Vincent Street Free Church, also by Thomson

Bibliography

"Caledonia Road United Presbyterian Church (Former)." Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland.

Crawford, Robert. On Glasgow and Edinburgh. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013.

"Recording Your Heritage Online: 1 Caledonia Road, 1856, Alexander Thomson." Canmore. Web. 2 November 2020.

Small, Sam. Greater Glasgow: An Illustrated Architectural Guide. Edinburgh: The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, 2008.

Created 2 November 2020