A Victorian Extravaganza

We had time to spare this morning and decided to explore a bit more of Glasgow. We'd never been to the Necropolis, the Victorian cemetery on the hill beside the Cathedral, so that was where we went.

It truly is a city of the dead - mausoleums, obelisks, miniature temples , every kind  of funerary masonry imaginable, and flowery epitaphs galore.

I knew nothing of the history so I looked it up at home and found this - from 'Thoughts on Death and Moral Stimulus', by one John Strong, who was custodian of the land on which it is built, and who suggested turning it into a cemetery:

'It will afford a much wanted accommodation to the higher classes, and would at the same time convert an unproductive property into a general and lucrative source of profit'.  This gem is embedded in pious sentiments about respect for the dead and the Genius of Memory. Glasgow was a city of highly successful businessmen at this time, and Mr Strong must have fitted in rather well.

I doubt if any of my hand-loom weaving Glasgow ancestors  were prosperous  enough to make it in here, but there's a window in the Cathedral commemorating the Incorporations, or Trade Guilds, so I've put it in as an extra as a nod to them,.