Having successfully pitched an article on the Gorbals Vampire (about which more later) to the American horror pop culture magazine Cryptology, I came to the Southern Necropolis, the fiend’s reputed stalking ground, to take some accompanying photos. Although a semi-regular wanderer through north of the river counterpart the Glasgow Necropolis, I had never been here before despite being a bit of an old cemetery nerd. Having now visited it I decided the Southern Necropolis was interesting enough to warrant a write-up here.
The Southern Necropolis opened in 1840, with the first burial – that of a 16-month-old girl – taking place on 21 July that year. By 1846 all the plots in the original cemetery, what’s now known as the Central Section, were sold, and the Necropolis was expanded to include the Eastern Section, with the Western Section added in 1850. At 21 acres the Gorbals site is much smaller than the Glasgow Necropolis (37 acres), but it is home to over a quarter of a million residents while its Cathedral-based counterpart has a ‘mere’ 50,000 interments.
Entry to the Southern Necropolis is through this castellated Norman-style gatehouse designed by Charles Wilson in 1848. Wilson now numbers amongst the cemetery’s residents.The sprawling western section of the Necropolis. The nearest tombstone bears grim witness to the shocking child mortality rates in Victorian times, with Elizabeth Bennett dying aged just six weeks, Joseph at seven months, Mary nine months, Alexander three months, with his twin David dying just six days later.
Several notable people are interred in the Southern Necropolis. Above is the tomb of Thomas Lipton (1850 – 1931), a Gorbals boy who, as the founder of Lipton Tea, went on to become a multi-millionaire. Lipton’s tea is the best-selling brand in the United States today, where some ten million cups are consumed daily. Lipton was also a keen yachtsman and challenged – unsuccessfully – the American holders of the America’s Cup on five separate occasions from 1899 to 1930. Some of his yachting trophies are exhibited in the People’s Palace and Kelvingrove Museum. According to the excellent Southern Necropolis Heritage Trail brochure (available at the entrance to the cemetery), Lipton “remained a humble man, an extremely generous benefactor to the poor who never forgot his working class origins. Most of his donations were carried out anonymously and the sheer scale of his benevolence only became apparent after his death”. Following his death on 2 October 1931, thousands of people lined the streets of the Gorbals to pay their respects as his funeral cortege made its way to the Southern Necropolis.
Above is the tomb of another Southern Necropolis notable, Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, who vies with Charles Rennie Mackintosh as Glasgow’s greatest architect. Thomson earned his nickname due to his blending of neo-classical, Egyptian, and oriental motifs in his designs, an example of which can be seen below. His original memorial was lost to the elements and vandalism, and the striking design above was erected in 2006 following an international design competition that was won by Graeme Andrew and Edward Taylor of ataStudio.One of Thompson’s great works stands just a ten minute walk west along Caledonia Road from the Southern Necropolis. Caledonia Road Church was initially the design of John Baird, but Thomson took over the project after their partnership dissolved. The church opened 1857 and ceased to be used in 1963; an arson attack two years later led to some of the building being demolished. There have been various restoration and future use plans proposed since the 1990s but none have been put into action to date. The White Lady is arguably the Necropolis’s most iconic monument. It serves as the memorial to carpet manufacturer John S. Smith, his wife Magdalene, and their housekeeper of 25 years, Mary McNaughton. The date of Smith’s death is now obscured, but Mrs. Smith and Mrs. McNaughton both died as the result of an accident on 29 October 1933. While sheltering from heavy rain behind a shared umbrella they stepped into the path of an oncoming tram on Queen’s Drive. Mrs. Smith was pronounced dead on arrival at the Victoria Infirmary, with Mrs. McNaughton dying a fortnight later. Local legend has it that the White Lady turns her head as you pass by but I put that to the test and got zip.The remains of twenty bodies were discovered when the area around Shuttle Street was redeveloped in 2003, and archaeological evidence linked them to a long gone Franciscan Friary that had stood there in mediaeval times. was built 1472 – 1476. The fact that seven of the skeletons were female meant the bodies were not those of Franciscan monks, so it is believed that they belonged to benefactors whose financial support earned them burial within the monastery. Following a service in St. Andrew’s Cathedral on 18 March 2005 these ancient followers of St. Francis were reinterred, this time in a specially prepared spot (above) in the Southern Necropolis. On the evening of 23 September 1954 PC Alex Deeprose was first responder to reports of a disturbance in the Southern Necropolis. On arrival he found hundreds of schoolchildren prowling through the cemetery, armed with knives, axes, and sticks. They were, they explained, looking for the Man with the Iron Teeth, a seven-foot monster that had already caught and devoured two young boys. More police arrived, and parents, and the headmaster of a local school assured the children there was no monster, and the children eventually dispersed and went home. But they came back over the next two nights to continue the hunt. By the fourth night no one showed up, and the moment had passed. There was, of course, no Man with the Iron Teeth, nor had he claimed two young victims. It was an unusual case of mass hysteria, and American comic books got the blame.The monster came to be known as the Gorbals Vampire and the incident is commemorated by this mural at St. Luke’s Place, about a twenty minute walk / five minute drive from the cemetery.
Destination or Diversion?
The Southern Necropolis is really quite compact and can be easily done in an hour, so is no more than a diversion.
A selection of gravestones and memorials in the central section of the Necropolis.
