St Kentigern’s Church is one of around 8,000 Scheduled Monuments in Scotland. These are recognised by Historic Environment Scotland as being nationally important monuments and sites. National importance takes account of a wide range of factors, including artistic, archaeological, architectural, historic, traditional, aesthetic, scientific and social. The aim of scheduling is to preserve sites and monuments as far as possible in the form in which they have come down to us today.
The project to ‘Save St Kentgiern’s Church’ has been driven forward by Douglas Ritchie, retired Structural Engineer and Vice Chair of the Lanark Community Development Trust.
As of September 2018, remedial building works have now commenced. Douglas commented “After many years of hard work progressing this project with South Lanarkshire Council and Historic Environment Scotland, it’s fantastic to finally see it come to fruition.”
“I first became involved in the project around 4 years ago because the Church, and Mausoleum, were at severe risk of collapse and I wanted action to secure the future for both structures thus preventing any further deterioration of these extremely important ‘hidden gems’ of Lanark’s heritage.”
Douglas and the Development Trust have plans to develop St Kentigern’s Church and Mausoleum as an asset to promote tourism to the local area, based on the results of a recent feasibility study conducted by The Moffat Centre at Glasgow Caledonian University. These plans include historically sympathetic aesthetic improvements to the entrance avenue and improvements to roadside and pavement signage indicating the entrance to the church. Plans also include the development of a marketing strategy, to increase local, national and international awareness of the church and their significant connections to William Wallace – as well as an interpretation strategy to provide engaging information at the historic site.
Do you have any skills, historical knowledge or tourism experience to get involved in this project? Get in touch!
