Ship of Fools: St Stephen's, Dalmuir, Clydebank, Scotland

The Mystery Worshipper

Ship of Fools: St Stephen's, Dalmuir, Clydebank, Scotland

Ship of Fools

Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here

Bishops Finger

Just noticed this Report from a good many years ago! I think the mysterious sculpture in the church may represent the stoning of Stephen, who is the church's patron saint.

Forthview

I knew this church quite well during my childhood. As BF surmised it is a huge wall relief sculpture showing St Stephen (wearing a dalmatic) being stoned to death.
At the time of the original Report there was quite a discussion about the family being 'ignored'. The family would have been unaware that a) there would have been several Masses in this church on a Sunday morning and b) being in quite a Catholic area there would be lots of people coming to Mass
from other parishes and c) rightly or wrongly people would assume that those coming would know what they were doing -it would still be quite uncommon for people to notice 'strangers' in their midst (as they would all considered to be part of the Catholic family).

Forthview

I am unable to find a picture of the interior of St Stephen's,Dalmuir. The earlier church was destroyed during the Clydebank blitz and the more modern one was one of a large number of new churches in the archdiocese of Glasgow opened during the episcopate of Archbishop Donald Campbell.
The Archdiocese also bought a former Presbyterian church which was renamed Our Lady of Loretto. It has gone now but there still remains a Primary School of that name. If you look at local statistics you will see that there are more children attending RC schools here than non-denominational ones.

Bishops Finger

Thanks @Forthview.

Stephen was a Deacon, we are told, so the dalmatic is the appropriate vestment, even though they probably didn't have them in the early days of the church!

Forthview

Yes, but they did have them in the archdiocese of Glasgow.
The huge sculpture covers the whole of the wall where in pre Vatican 2 times the high altar would have been.

Bishops Finger

Nick Tamen

Forthview wrote: »

I am unable to find a picture of the interior of St Stephen's,Dalmuir.

Here you go.

Bishops Finger

Thanks @Nick Tamen - if you enlarge the image, the detail of the sculpture becomes more visible.

It is a wonderful piece of work IMHO.

Stercus Tauri

An old bore writes... The heading picture surely isn't Dalmuir? The banded rubble masonry looks like an older English style, and perhaps it has migrated from the Hunstanton report.

Nick Tamen

Stercus Tauri wrote: »

An old bore writes... The heading picture surely isn't Dalmuir? The banded rubble masonry looks like an older English style, and perhaps it has migrated from the Hunstanton report.

Yes. As has been mentioned before, a glitch in the Ship’s software—repeatedly fixed only to reappear with every software update—results in the use of the picture from a recent MW report for threads on MW reports originally posted on the old Ship.

Forthview

Thanks,@Nick Tamen, for finding a picture. I used to have a brochure from the time of the opening of the church,but it has disappeared.