ST MAHEW'S CHURCH, CARDROSS
Upper Darleith Road, Cardross.
https://w3w.co/confident.scores.making
ACCESS : The carpark is closed except for services and official events, but it makes a pleasant walk up from the town below. It is possible to walk around the grounds with its small graveyard and trees.
Yet again we find ourselves considering features across "the county border" with Argyll and Bute. At the time this was built this was all one county and the histories merged.
The St Mahew website tells us that:
The chapel of St Mahew, built in 1467 and restored in 1955, stands on one of the earliest Christian missionary sites in Scotland (6th Century). The chapel is one of only four mediaeval churches which have been restored to their former use. The others are: Greyfriars at Elgin, the Chapel Royal at Falkland and the Priory at Pluscarden.
The Parish of St Mahew's, Cardross, was formed in 1978 with a priest resident in the village. Today, it is served from the neighbouring parish of St Michael's, Dumbarton.
The Archdiocese of Glasgow is set to begin the formal consultation process to merge St Mahew’s with St Michael’s to form a single parish – with St Mahew’s reverting to its historic designation as a ‘chapel of ease’. For the moment, Mass provision is suspended....
The St Mahew who founded the Cill of Kilmahew was one of the Celtic missionary monks who, in the 6th century, preached the gospel to the people of the western shores of Scotland. He has been identified, from pre-reformation breviaries, as a prophet and disciple of St Patrick. He was a Briton who converted to Christianity from paganism.
Mahew is a form of Mochta and it is believed that Mahew later went to Ireland where, as Mochta of Louth, he founded an important monastery and gained a great reputation for sanctity, dying in the year AD 535. His monastery remained an important ecclesiastical centre for generations after the his death and continued to send out missionary monks far and wide to establish new centres of Christian life.
This church may be small, but St Mahew Church is very attractive and was a significant religious centre at one time. It had physical links through to Stoneymollan above the Vale of Leven through the use of a track known as the Coffin Road. That route cans till be walked today, in part or right through between Balloch and Cardross. See STONEYMOLLAN, BALLOCH
A winter sunset.
PARISH MEMORIES : https://www.parishmemories.org/scotland/cardross/parish/st-mahew-s-cardross
ST MAHEW website : https://www.stmahew.rcglasgow.org.uk/