Wednesday, January 10th 2024: Ian Johnson "The Arrival of Christianity and the Church to Dumbarton"

The first Lennox Heritage Society lecture of 2024 was delivered by the Reverend Ian Johnson on Wednesday 10th January to a capacity audience at the Concord Centre. Ian got the year off to a great start with his talk entitled: ”THE ARRIVAL OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH TO DUMBARTON”

Ian grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne and studied Mediaevel History at St Andrews University. After working as a banker, he studied Divinity at Glasgow University and then worked as a Church of Scotland minister in Greenock for 16 years. After Greenock, Ian moved onto Dumbarton where he provided leadership and pastoral care to three parishes.

During his introduction, Ian advised us that no-one kept a diary or log of what was happening when Christianity first came to Dumbarton. Nor is there any written record of what the early Church in Dumbarton would have been like. As a consequence, there are inevitably many gaps in this story.

Ian talked us through who some of the people who lived around the junction of the rivers Clyde and Leven were. Interestingly, the first written reference of these people is in a 2nd Century AD work by the Greek geographer, Ptolemy of Alexandria (in Egypt). Ptolemy called them the Damnonii. Subsequent people in this area were known as the Kings of Alt Clut (possibly from about the 6th to 7th Centuries) but it wasn’t until the 10th- 12th Centuries that the wider area became known as Strathclyde. Around the 12th Century, the immediate area was then known as the Lennox and the people perhaps spoke Gaelic. In 1222, when King Alexander II founded the Royal Burgh of Dumbarton, the inhabitants regarded themselves as Scots.

In his very comprehensive and informative talk, Ian advised us how some of the gaps in this history could be filled. He spoke of written sources such as histories, annals and poems and also standing physical remains such as the Govan Stones and the Barochan cross. Ian also spoke of what life before Christianity and Christianity in late Roman and post Roman Britain might have been like. In addition he gave us an insight into what Christian life might have been at other periods of time in the history of Dumbarton. In a very complex but thoroughly researched topic such as this lecture covered, it would be impossible to do justice to and to recount all the points made. However, in his conclusion, Ian acknowledged that it is difficult to say anything definitive about how and when Christianity and the Church came to Dumbarton. He said that it would be reasonable to assume that there would be four or five phases to the process and he listed these phases as:

• Trade and political encounters with Christians south of Hadrian’s Wall.

• Missionaries seeking to convert the king, court and peoples of Alt Clut.

• An official decision by the king and court to become Christian

• A Christian presence may have remained in the area of the lower Clyde after the Viking sack of Alt Clut and through the Kingdom of Strathclyde and into the 12th Century.

• It may well have been the case that there was a church presence in Dumbarton at the time that Alexander II established the Royal Burgh.

Finally, Ian stated that there is so much about Dumbarton’s history that we do not know. He said that it is unlikely that more written evidence will emerge. He acknowledged that very little archaeological research has been undertaken and that more could be done at Dumbarton Castle. In addition, work could be done around the church sites on the High Street and in Levengrove Park. However, given all the development that has taken place in those locations, if there was once valuable archaeological evidence there, it may not be there now.

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