Millburn Church

Millburn Church stands ruined in Renton, West Dunbartonshire, a Gothic building begun in 1845 for the Free Church of Scotland. Its architect may have been John Thomas Rochead, though some credit George Meikle Kemp, designer of the Scott Monument. The church became a category A listed structure and joined Scotland’s Buildings at Risk Register. By 1985 it had closed and demolition was proposed. A storm in 2006 toppled the steeple, and in 2009 another attempt to demolish the ruin was made. The building survived because local opposition withdrew the demolition plan in 2011. Two nieces of Robert Burns lie in the kirkyard beside the roofless nave. The east gable still rises above the gravestones, showing the Gothic windows and tracery. Ivy climbs the masonry where the roof once kept out rain. The ruin is fenced off, yet visitors can walk the grass path around its walls. A low iron fence marks the boundary between the churchyard and the pavement. The east end shows the tall lancets and a pointed arch doorway. From the street the gable reads like a page of Gothic geometry against the sky. The kirkyard holds plain headstones and a few table tombs, all weathered by decades without upkeep. Two Burnses rest here, their names faint on the stone.