STREETS AHEAD WILLING SPIRITS HELP TO CLEAN UP GRAVEYARD
Volunteers join our campaign by caring for
FIGURES flit, phantom-like, through the trees. Strange sounds sing out, snipping and snapping, like something chomping its way towards us...
Have the ghosts of the Southern Necropolis come out for Hallowe’en? Er, no. The activity at this ancient cemetery, in Caledonia Road i n the Gorbals, is more greenfingered than ghostly, as a bunch of local volunteers embark on one of the most important clean-ups of our Streets Ahead campaign.
Window cleaner Rick Hart, 59 and his wife Mary, 37, child development officer Colin Mackie, 50, and retail manager Elsie Reid, 50, and a host of neighbours and friends, are determined to restore the burial ground to its former glory.
And thanks to support from Clean Glasgow, the local community payback team and a £2000 grant from the Evening Times Streets Ahead campaign, they are well on their way.
“We are really grateful to the Streets Ahead campaign for this money – it’s a huge boost,” says Colin, who has researched the history of the cemetery for 25 years.
“We know we have a massive task ahead of us, but it’s such an important place not just to Glasgow, but to Scotland too, that we are determined to do it.”
The Evening Times Streets Ahead campaign – run with support from our generous partners Scottish Fire and Rescue, ScotRail, City Charitable Trust, Clean Glasgow and Glasgow Housing Association – aims to encourage people to improve their streets, parks, play areas and community gardens.
But this is the first time we have involved a graveyard.
It was Rick who kickstarted the project this year.
“I was walking the dog through here and it was so overgrown the branches from the trees were hitting me in the face,” he says.
“The walls are covered in ivy and many of the headstones are broken – and yet there are many important people buried here. It seemed such a shame, so I got together with some friends and we set up Snag, Southern Necropolis Action Group.
“We’ve had great support f r o m C l e a n G l a s g ow, particularly land and environmental services and Community Safety Glasgow, and we have been carrying out regular clean-ups since.
“We now have more than 30 members and it’s growing.”
There are around 250,000 graves at the Southern Necropolis, which opened in 1840, and the list of dignitaries and Glasgow characters buried there include tea millionaire Thomas Lipton, architects Alexander Greek Thomson and Charles Wilson (who designed the gatehouse at the entrance to the 21-acre site), soldiers who fought in the First World War, shipbuilders and even Robert Burns’s nephew.
Snag members are out in force i n all weathers, clearing paths, weeding, cutting back the ivy and picking up litter.
In the course of a recent clean-up, Rick also discovered a previously hidden grave commemorating the cemetery’s own gardener.
James Stewart, resident gardener for 25 years in the 1800s, had the honour of being buried in a grave alongside the outside wall, a place awarded only to those with wealth or status.
“It shows you how well he was regarded, because he wouldn’t have been a wealthy man,” says Rick, adding with a smile: “That was a nice one to find. I think he would be pleased by what we’re trying to do.”
SNAG has ambitious plans for the site, including a wildflower meadow and seating area, mini-orchard and a nature reserve.
“We want to develop the two big open areas, which have no graves on them, into family-friendly, na turefriendly spaces,” says Colin.
“We hope to work with local schools on nesting boxes and even, eventually, restore the gatehouse into a visitor centre and cafe.”
Councillor Gordon Matheson, chairman of Clean Glasgow, says: “Over the last six years, schools, individuals, community groups and businesses have taken the lead in making our beautiful city a cleaner and safer place to live as part of the Clean Glasgow campaign.