Landmark Churches at Risk

The Heritage Lottery Fund has rejected an application from the Four Acres Charitable Trust for less than £1 million to save and re-vitalise Lansdowne Church on Great Western Road.

Said David Robertson, Project Director at Four Acres: ‘They had six applications totalling £4.5million in front of them at their December meeting. But the Fund had only £1.5 million to give out. We’re in good company, however,’ he added. ‘An application from Glasgow’s St Andrew’s Cathedral on Clyde Street, was also rejected.’

He said it is not the first time the Trust has experienced such a knock-back. ‘We’ve been here before, so we’ll fight on.’ The Trust saved Downhill Church which is now the successful pub/restaurant known as Cottiers.

Roy Henderson, minister of Lansdowne Church of Scotland told the LOCAL NEWS, ‘It is remarkable how well Landsdowne people have taken the news. They are very sanguine about it.’

A major landmark on the skyline at Kelvinbridge, Lansdowne is ‘A’ listed and in need of significant funding for essential repairs and conservation work. The proposal between the congregation and Four Acres Trust was for the Trust to buy the property, obtain grant funding to repair, restore and convert the elegant space for commercial and community use – such as worship for the congregation.

The congregation turned out in force to a public meeting called by Friends of Glasgow West to examine the situation of Church Buildings @ Risk. David Howat speaks for the Friends ad hoc group concerned with Church Buildings @ Risk. He said: ‘Lansdowne and Kelvinside Hillhead Church are among the finest examples of Glasgow’s exceptional Victorian heritage. Their loss would be unthinkable. There is a very real danger either might be lost for ever if a viable and sustainable use cannot be found for them and funding put in place to carry out essential repairs and conservation of important stonework and stained glass.’

He added that the physical condition of both buildings is deteriorating rapidly.

Kelvinside Hillhead church in Observatory Road off Byres Road has a major problem with its roof which was badly damaged by storm a year ago. It had been offered Heritage Lottery Funding but only if the Church of Scotland was prepared to guarantee that the church had a future as a place of worship. That assurance has not been given, so far, so the building’s future is in jeopardy. The interior roof framework has now been seriously affected by the unattended storm damage.

The Friends had called the meeting in Hillhead Library on Wednesday 4 February, to bring attention to the urgency of the situation.

Around 60 people attended on an icy cold evening to hear David Howat, David Martin a conservation and architecture specialist and David Robertson of the Four Acres Trust.

‘There are 165 religious buildings in Scotland on the Civic Trust ‘at risk’ register,’ they were told by David Howat, a solicitor and one of the Friends of Glasgow West. ‘Of these, 25 are ‘A’ listed. And neither Lansdowne nor Kelvinside Hillhead features in the 11 ‘at risk’ in Glasgow.’ He said that such beautiful examples of art and craft were an intrinsic part of the community and irreplaceable parts of the landscape. ‘Each day the dry rot destroys another bit of a building. We wouldn’t let this happen in our close and we shouldn’t let it happen in our churches and communities.’

 

Said Ann Laird, Chair of Friends of Glasgow West, who chaired the meeting: ‘There is an opportunity for innovative answers. Cottiers is just one example.’ She urged anyone concerned with the spectre of losing such landmark buildings from local neighbourhoods to lobby city Councillors and Members of the Scottish Parliament and Westminster MPs.

 

• A challenge to photographers to record the interior of Lansdowne has been made on flickr picture sharing site by tom@clearwood.co.uk The first open day for photographers was on Sunday 8 February.
• Minister Roy Henderson has a blog on Steeple 208 with some interesting insights into how the congregation and the community might proceed.