13 January 2010: St Mungo’s Cathedral

St Mungo’s Cathedral – also known as Glasgow Cathedral – is the best preserved example of a medieval church to have survived the Reformation.

The Cathedral's origins date back to about AD 550 when St Mungo, also known as St Kentigern, founded a religious community around a small church in a location just to the east of what is now Glasgow city centre. Today this church is the site of the Blacader aisle in the lower church of the Cathedral.

During St Mungo’s time the church was visited by St Columba, and St Mungo himself travelled widely, preaching in both Cumbria and North Wales, and going on pilgrimage to Rome. After his death on 13 January 614, St Mungo was buried close to his church. Today his tomb lies in the centre of the Cathedral’s lower choir, reputedly on the actual site of his grave.

The original church was built of wood, and it was not until 1136 that the first stone church was consecrated on the site in the presence of King David I. The earliest significant parts of what can be seen today are the walls of the nave, up to the level of the bottoms of the windows. These date back to the next round of rebuilding, in the early 1200s. In the mid 1200s much of the rest of the Cathedral appeared: in particular the upper and lower choirs were added to the east end of the nave.

Although the Reformation saw the removal of many decorative features from St Mungo’s Cathedral, it remains today as a grand medieval building at the heart of Scotland’s largest city.