Glasgow Cathedral and Necropolis

Glasgow Cathedral

So, this tour was actually about a week ago but as I hope you can imagine, figuring out how to set myself up here has been a struggle to say the least. I basically feel completely uprooted from all my comforts and have been trying to make friendships and routines comparable to what I've left behind - which I can tell you right now feels impossible.

Glasgow Cathedral (left) and some of the city.

This trip was a free walking tour to the Glasgow Cathedral, burial place of St Mungo, patron saint of the city. I am an absolute cathedral junkie as I discovered during my high school trip to Spain. This was my first British cathedral, involved with the Reformation and all. This cathedral was built Catholic, and when the
Reformation happened, the people of Glasgow saved the building from being burned to the ground and simply continued using it as a place of worship once the national religious stance became Protestant in Scotland. There is lots of evidence of the wear and tear on the building, mostly ash and soot from the Industrial Revolution covering the outer walls.

Next to the cathedral is the Necropolos, or "City of the Dead" - a Victorian-era cemetery hosting graves of the city's people during most of the 1800's. The cemetery has tombstones, headstones, and even beautiful mausoleums that are the resting places of entire families. I learned that I am also a cemetery lover - I found the sculpture and quiet of the site so beautiful, and the mystery of the people buried there only hinted at by their epitaphs.

It was a very long walk and was dark by the time the tour was over and everyone had gone home -
Holly, Shayna and I weren't keen on getting lost in the Necropolis alone after nightfall, so we made our way fairly quickly back to the city center. I hope to go back there before the end of my trip and explore more of the cemetery's beautiful structures and scuptures.