Description

Opened 1903. Pentagonal-plan cemetery and office to SW. Pathways laid out to form outline of Roman Centurion's helmet. Douglas of Mains Mausoleum to centre of cemetery. Two exposed areas of Antonine Wall stone base (SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT) within cemetery grounds.

GATE PIERS, GATES AND BOUNDARY WALL: massive, square-plan ashlar gatepiers. Tall, heavily scored and tooled ashlar shafts with raised base course and strip quoins; classical moulded string course to head; shallowly ogee-curved capital with banded string course. Projecting, rectangular, pagoda-shaped caps with large ball finials. Art Nouveau wrought-iron and cast-iron gates; central, stylised thistle emblem to plain railings; tall outer railings. Wrought-iron, barred pedestrian gate to left of gateway; curved walls link to low, ashlar boundary wall, set forward from gateway (formerly with iron railings, now with hedges to rear).

DOUGLAS OF MAINS MAUSOLEUM: 1906. Rectangular-plan, raised, open burial plot; low outer boundary walls of coursed, stugged red sandstone; advanced base course, splayed at top; plain, thin rectangular copes; raised entrance to S side; plain rectangular buttresses to centre of E and W walls. Flat, raised inner burial area; loose pebble covering; commemorative plaque to N wall with Douglas of Mains crest and raised lettering.

GRAVESTONES AND MEMORIALS: elaborately carved Celtic Cross (1927) in central area of cemetery, also in memory of Douglas of Mains family member, Douglas Campbell; foliated shaft and cross with medieval knight carving to head of shaft and heraldic shield to bottom; three stage base with flanking stones to either side. To N, large granite headstone (1940) dedicated to Eliza Templeton Hammond Couper and William Ramsay Law. Low, tapered granite base; circular carving to upper centre of gravestone; decorative bronze relief of 2 trumpeters. Also to N, a tripartite granite gravestone (1926), to Robina Hutton, Alexander Monteath McLundie and family. Round mosaic to upper centre of stone, depicting bird in sunlight, inscribed, FREEDOM AND LIGHT. Larger, rectangular mosaic to rear, portraying woman looking to heavens.

Statement of Interest

New Kilpatrick Cemetery was opened in 1903, following a competition to design the new cemetery layout. The winning design showed pathways laid out to form in plan the outline of a Roman centurions helmet, in recognition of the fact that a particularly well preserved section of the Antonine Wall (SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT) crosses the centre of the cemetery. Two areas of the wall have been excavated to their stone base course and remain exposed. The cemetery paths were gradually laid out as the cemetery was filled, appearing complete for the first time on the Ordnance Survey map revised between 1936-1938. There is no trace of the cemetery or lodge on the 2nd edition map from the 1890s, showing only open fields at this time. The cemetery is bordered to the left by the Old Bearden Conservation Area, but excludes any of the cemetery grounds. Another, earlier, Mausoleum of the Douglas of Mains family is found in the churchyard of New Kilpatrick Parish Church. The mausoleum in New Kilpatrick cemetery was installed in 1906, in what was eventually to be the centre of the cemetery and the Ordnance Survey map of 1914 shows the mausoleum to be at the very rear of the half developed cemetery.

New Kilpatrick Cemetery lies within the amenity zone for the Antonine Wall recommended in D N Skinner The Countryside of the Antonine Wall (1973), and which will form the basis of the buffer zone, yet to be defined, for the proposed Antonine Wall World Heritage Site.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)