IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Main Street, ALEXANDRIA, G83 0AW

The church (1877-78) stands alongside Albert Street in Alexandria.

The bar is at the corner of Main Street and Albert Street, and the art is by Barry the Cat. I am grateful to the person from the bar who took the time to explain the details to me on the day. The mural was painted in such a way as not to clash with the existing colour scheme of the bar. Among the local worthies, past and recent, commemorated in it are Tobias Smollett, at the lower-left corner (Image / Image), and Skeets Gallacher, at the far right (Image). Long ago, a horse could put its head through a hatch in the side of the building to feed from a bucket; the artwork alludes to this. That hatch is now a window (appropriately, the one with the horse painted around it).

Upper Bridge Street Alexandria from the Junction of Middleton Street and Queen Street

taken from Upper bridge Street and Queen Street junction

Looking along Arthur Street from the B857.

The stone is set beside the southern boundary wall of Image The inscription names Archibald Ferguson himself (he was a painter in Dumbarton), his son David Napier Ferguson, and his wife Grace Napier. The stone is not particularly remarkable in itself, but the story of its being located here does say something about nineteenth-century Dumbarton. Donald MacLeod, in his book "Historic Families ... of the Lennox" (1891), mentions "Three Dumbartonians" buried in this churchyard, one of whom is Archibald Ferguson, "painter, town councillor, and elder of the Parish Kirk; a decent worthy, prosperous man". The other two are William McFarlane, "grocer and proprietor in the royal burgh, an honest, plain, blunt man of the old school, and also an elder of the Kirk" (his memorial is located nearby), and Robert Lang, who worked in a coalmaster's office, and later ran a steam tug (MacLeod says that "he was a smart man, but possessed of a fiery, ungovernable temper"). MacLeod explains the reason for their being buried here; they had been parties to the expensive litigation connected to the shutting down of the old kirkyard of Dumbarton Parish Church (see http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Dumbarton-Cemetery#closing-the-parish-churchyard where this is discussed at length; the three Dumbarton men were opposed to the closure of the old Dumbarton kirkyard), and, as MacLeod puts it, "rather than lie within the borders of its new and beautiful cemetery, they preferred that their mortal remains should decay and be resolved into dust among 'unco folk'". He follows it up with a remark that "the ruling spirit, in each of the above cases, was strong in death". [That last remark sounds, to me, like a snide comment (those who wished to be buried elsewhere are, in effect, being described as very stubborn). If it is, the reason lies in the politics of Dumbarton life at that time. There was an underlying division into two factions, one of them consisting of the Denny family and their supporters, and another that was opposed to their activities. In the resulting disputes, MacLeod was very much on the Denny side; in fact, he was personally involved in some of the resulting litigation. As a result, a bias is sometimes apparent in his works, and it is as well to be aware of this (though it does not detract from the historical value of his books). For example, the Dennys had been behind the creation of the new Dumbarton Cemetery, which MacLeod described in glowing terms (as quoted above), and they were also behind the moves to have Dumbarton's old parish churchyard closed to new burials. See http://www.geograph.org.uk/article/Dumbarton-Cemetery#closing-the-parish-churchyard where these factional divisions are discussed under the subheading "The Chronicles of Gotham".]

This is a view from the other side of Main Street. The main gate is between two pillars. A war memorial used to stand in the kirkyard, just beyond and to the left of that gate, but it now stands beside the present-day Image: see Image

The memorial is set in the eastern wall of Image, and the first part of its inscription is as follows: "In memory of the Rev'd William Kidd, Minister of this Parish, ordained 25th January, 1844, died 20th September, 1891, in his 85th year." The minister was born at Arniston (Image), Midlothian, in December 1806, and attended school at East Linton (Image). The family later moved to Edinburgh, and he attended the High School and university there. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Dalkeith in 1834, and served in various parishes before being ordained to the charge of Alexandria congregation in January 1844. His successor was J Cromarty Smith, who, to lighten Kidd's load, had been appointed his assistant and successor in June 1888 [these biographical details are from Donald MacLeod's "Historic Families ... of the Lennox" (1891); I have corrected "Armiston" to "Arniston"]. The inscription also commemorates his wife, Margaret McClure, and their sons and daughters. Just out of shot to the right is Image