WELLWYND CHURCHYARD, AIRDRIE

[Lodger]

This is the Gartshore & Rankin stone.
Inscription reads "The property of Alexander Gartshore and Jane Rankin his wife and heirs 1829".

[Graham_of_that_Ilk]

Thanks most helpful.

Graham

[Graham_of_that_Ilk]

Hi,
   can anyone help me out with these Churches in Airdrie. I downloaded a "mortcloth" death extract from SP, at the top it gives a list of proclamations of marriage. Some say the person was from the West Parish, or the East Parish, High Parish and others just the place name in Airdrie was the Wellwynd Church any of those above

What Churches were the West, East and High in Airdrie any help most welcome.

G

[Lodger]

The East Parish church began life as a Chapel of Ease, to relieve the overcrowded New Monkland Parish Church at Glenmavis. It was erected soon after a petition signed by 436 inhabitants of Airdrie was handed to the Presbytery at Hamilton in 1791. It was situated in Chapel Street and was always known as "The Old Chapel", even after it became a Quad Sacra parish after the introduction of the Quad Sacra Act in 1834. It was demolished in 1855 after it was undermined by the workings of the Jenny Lind ironstone mine. The burial ground survived until the 1960s but it too has now gone.

After it was forced to close, the East Parish merged with the West Parish Church at the foot of the Wellwynd, I don't know when the West Parish was founded but it would probably have been around 1800 - 1810. That church didn't have a burial ground, the congregation would have used either the East Church burial ground or the parish church ground at Glenmavis.
There was another church in the Wellwynd, half-way up on the right side, this was founded as a Burgher Church in, I think, 1789 and was the first church to be built in the town of Airdrie. The present church on the site dates from around 1846 but is no longer used as a place of worship.

I can't imagine where the "High Church" could have been? This is not a term associated with the Church of Scotland, could you say where you found this information?

[Graham_of_that_Ilk]

Hi,
    if you look on Scotlandspeople for a death date before 1855 it will be a mortcloth payment. If you get the extract for that person you have access to the whole page. At the top of the page are payments made to the Church, proclamations for marriage, the one I was interested in was Elizabeth Thomson died 1841 mortcloth payment of 4/-. I had a look at the proclamation and noticed that it said so and so from west Parish, so and so from east parish, one from High parish, and one from south parish. The only fly in the ointment is you don't know what Church the page is from, it could be Wellwynd or Broomknoll, Scotlandspeople don't identify individual Churches with these extracts. What ever Church this extract is from it must have been popular for so many people to come from all over. I wondered if it was Broomknoll.

G

[Lodger]

What you will be looking at is an extract from the Old Parochial Register for New Monkland parish.
Anyone who lived in the parish, no matter what religion or what church they attended - or of no religion at all, was entitled to be interred in the parochial burial ground. In this case, the churchyard surrounding the parish church at Glenmavis.
As I said in my previous post, the West parish church (by 1841 a Quod Sacra parish) did not have a burial ground and so the parishioners would have to have used the churchyard at Glenmavis.
So, this Mortcloth register belongs to the parish church and the fact that it mentions which Quod Sacra parish the deceased belonged to is a little bonus for you. It also eliminates the possibility of them being interred in the Chapel St, Wellwynd (Burgher) Church or Broomknoll St burial grounds within Airdrie burgh.
There were a few other churches in Airdrie at that time, all Secessionist churches, the Cameronians were in Upper Bridge St and the "Auld Lichts" (a Burgher breakaway congregation) built a church with a surrounding burial ground round about 1804 I think, in Broomknoll Street.
Lastly, St Margaret's Roman Catholic church in Airdrie was founded in 1836, the oldest Catholic church in the Diocese of Motherwell, it doesn't have a burial ground so its parishioners would have been interred at Glenmavis until the opening of St Joseph's R.C. cemetery, about 1855 I think.
 

[Graham_of_that_Ilk]

Cheers for that most helpful.

G

[alys]

I was married by the the minister of the High Church in Airdrie, my own minister being on holiday at the time.  The High Church/Kirk is situated in North Bridge Street, very close to the High Street so that might be how it got it’s name.  I don’t know the history of the church.