During 1988, an extensive project organised by Church Volunteers was undertaken to repair the High Blantyre Old Parish churchyard wall. Great care and effort was put in by volunteers of all ages, who worked hard that summer to go around the perimeter wall, and carefully rebuild the broken sections, including extensively repointing the failing cement.
At one time, even Rev Price rolled up his sleeves and assisted. Some of these photos, you can see no Technology Park in the background, only fields. The repair work had to be halted at the old Kirkyard itself, for those particular walls are actually one of a dozen of so structures in Blantyre that has listed status. The cemetery churchyard walls were listed on 12th January 1971 and require special permission to be worked upon. Indeed, that permission has not been forthcoming yet and sadly the cemetery walls at Kirkton are now in a deplorable state, especially at the western side where some of the gravestones had actually been built into the wall.
I have written to Historic Scotland documenting the state of the walls and enclosing some history on the stones that are about to be lost within the damaged sections. I hope my letter is given some consideration and ideally a repair budget, something I’ll keep you posted on.
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Michelle Evans I vaguely remember being roped into helping out (willingly) with tea duty for this and my dad helping out (the church was next to our house – my dad still lives there).