Site Report

WoSASPIN 9354
NS66NW 17.00 6025 6557
NS66NW 17.01 602 656 New Burial Ground

(NS 6025 6557) Cath (NAT)
OS 6" map (1967)

Glasgow Cathedral (which is still in use) stands on the site of a monastery founded by St Kentigern in the 6th - 7th century. It was rebuilt, probably as a small cruciform church, and consecrated in 1136. Numerous extensions and rebuildings took place until the 15th century, when it assumed its present form.
C A R Radford 1970

A watching brief was carried out during excavtion of a floodlighting track around the cathedral. Two sets of reburied skeletal fragments were found between the treasury and the sacristy. A small feature consisting of three stones mortared together and set on a clay soil was found on the N side of the building, opposite the stair tower of the N door. Most of the trench passed through disturbed levels, except at the E end of the cathedral, where it revealed the natural orange clay subsoil below topsoil.

Some slabs were lifted within the W doorway, and revealed a layer of rubble above some larger blocks. Part of the foundations of the butresses to the N and S of the door was also revealed. That on the S appears to be original, the N was rebuilt in the last century.
Sponsor: Friends of Glasgow Cathedral.
A Bailey 1992.

During the autumn and winter of 1992-3, extensive archaeological excavations were conducted in advance of the installation of a new heating and electrical system for the cathedral. Trenches were located where new ducts were to be installed below the floor in the Nave, the Choir, the Crypt and the Session Room. These trenches produced evidence for the construction of both the 12th-century cathedrals which preceded the presnt building. The early cathedrals were represented by in situ masonry and decorated fragments of masonry which had been reused in the 13th-century works. Traces of activity pre-dating the 13th-century were discovered in the W end of the Nave and important evidence was also recovered for the internal divisions of the post-Reformation use of the Nave.
Burials and stray human bones were found in the trenches dug in the Lower Church and the Nave. In total 77 burials were excavated, most of which can be reasonably well dated as well as hundreds of losse bones, which may be of any age. In the Lower Church no features relating to the site of St Mungo's tomb were found and most of the burials date to the early 19th century. In the Nave, burials were found which pre-date the 12th century structures and continued at irregular intervals to the 19th century.

Apart from the architectural fragments and coffin fittings, finds were scarce. The most significant artefactual discovery consisted of two massive medieval bronze martars and an iron pestle which had been deposited in a pit in the Lower Church.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland
S T Driscoll 1993

A small-scale excavation was carried out by GUARD in the NW corner of the Session Room in Glasgow Cathedral in October of 1993 in advance of the installation of a new electrical control board, consisting of three small trenches. The main trench was effectively an extension of the one which was opened in the 1992/93 season of work in Glasgow Cathedral (supra), and ran the length of the Session Room. Human remains were uncovered comprising five interments, four of which were excavated, which appeared to be contemporary with most of those recovered during the previous excavation i.e. early 19th century. Two additional trenches were dug in the kitchen area and the corridor which runs from the rear Session Room door to the door leading to the exterior of the Cathedral on the N. No features were visible in these trenches or the main trench other than the burials.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland
M [J] Richmond 1994b.

The excavation of service tracks for temporary office accommodation to the N of the cathedral was monitored by Kirkdale Archaeology. No finds were recovered from the site.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland.
G Ewart, 1996d

NS 602 655 A number of trenches were excavated to the N and E of the cathedral for the installation of CCTV cables and phone lines. Due to the sensitivity of the area a watching brief was undertaken and the following information was recorded.

Trench 1 was within the graveyard towards the NE corner. The soil was mixed and contained a number of fragments of disarticulated human bone. Two sandstone plot dividers were also found.

Trench 2 was outwith the graveyard and ran parallel to the E wall. A number of disarticulated human bones were unearthed. An articulated human skeleton (aligned W-E), an infant's skull and a fragmented adult skull were all recovered. Iron fittings were also located, possibly the remains of coffin fittings.
Sponsor: Glasgow City Council.
L H Johnstone 1997

NS 6025 6557 A watching brief was maintained in October 1997 during digging of new foundations for kerbing and other works. The material removed was modern in character, and no finds were revealed.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland
D Murray 1998.

Scheduled as Glasgow Cathedral, precinct and graveyard.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 20 November 2002.
Report date for above text from NMRS 30/06/2003

The scheduled area was amended by HS 20th Nov.2002. The entire area delinated by the scheduling boundry is scheduled with the following exclusions:
The above ground parts of the Cathedral now in use as Parish church; the above ground parts of now occupied by the Monument Conservation Unit Yard; and the upper 300mm of all surfaced paths, roads and cobbling. Modern gates and gate piers, along the length of modern wallin are also excluded from the scheduling.
Entered WoSAS (SJ) 17/01/03

The early history of Glasgow Cathedral is linked to the legend of Glasgow's patron saint, St Mungo, also known as Kentigern. Born in Fife, he is said to have followed the hearse of the holy man Fergus to Glasgow in the sixth century. He established a cathedral in a cemetery consecrated by St Ninian in the fifth century, and was buried in it around AD 612. His shrine in the Lower Church was a famous place of pilgrimage in medieval times.

There would have been timber and wattle structures on the site before the first stone church was built in the tenth century, succeeded by two more in the twelfth. The present building was begun in the thirteenth century. The Quire and Lower Church were completed first, followed by the Nave. The Sacristy and Chapter House were added in the early fifteenth century,. and finally, in the time of Archbishop Blacader (1483-1508), the Blacader Aisle and Quire Screen.

Glasgow was the only Scottish medieval cathedral to survive the Reformation. This was made possible by dividing up the interior into three smaller churches: the
Outer High Kirk, the Inner High Kirk in the Quire and the Barony in the Lower Church. The building lost much of its rich decoration and all its painted glass, however, and deteriorated steadily.

After 1801 the Lower Church was used as a burial ground. Soil to a depth f 1.5m was brought in and the graves were enclosed by railings. At the western end the Tower and the Consistory House were removed in 1846 and 1848 - a move deplored at the time as 'an act of barbarism'. Later in the nineteenth century
the cathedral was restored. The copper roof was added in 1912.

Inside the building, the Nave has a fine fourteenth-century timber ceiling. It is divided from the Quire by the Quire Screen, the only example remaining in any non-monastic medieval church in Scotland. The beautiful Lower Church, with its 'forest of pillars', holds the chapel and tomb of St Mungo, thirteenth-century floor slabs, and stonework from the gateway of the Bishop's Castle.

The Blacader Aisle is reputed to occupy the site of the cemetery consecrated by St Ninian. Its ceiling has a remarkable collection of carved medieval bosses.

In 1992-3 Stephen Driscoll (Glasgow University) oversaw a major excavation when a new heating and electrical system was being installed. Trenches opened
in the Nave, Choir, Crypt and Session Room produced evidence for both of the twelfth-century predecessors of the present cathedral, with masonry still in place and other fragments re-used in the thirteenth century. In the Nave there were traces of activity earlier than the thirteenth century, and evidence of the internal divisions built after the Reformation.

Large amounts of human remains were found in the Lower Church and the Nave. The excavators examined 77 burials in all. Some of those in the nave were earlier than the twelfth-century cathedral, and so represent part of the earliest history of this great religious centre.
Hothersakk, S., 'Archaeology Around Glasgow: 50 remarkable sites to visit', Glasgow Museums (2007)

The High Church of Glasgow was constructed in 1136 on the site of a c. 6th Century monastery founded by St. Kernigen. Extensions and rennovations followed and by the 1400s the Church had taken a form recognisable today. The Church survived the Scottish Reformation in 1560 virtually intact - however, it experienced a decline in stature and was used by three parish kirks (Inner High Kirk, Outer High Kirk, and the Barony Kirk) until the 19th Century. As seen on the 1857 OS Map, the mid-19th Century saw the Church revert to the title of 'Cathedral of St Mungo'. This was followed by the Cathedral being placed under control of the state and a prolonged period of restoration and maintenance.
Entered WoSAS (EG) 22/08/2018