Looking back with Ian Scott on the man who 'dinged down' Falkirk's Steeple

A few years ago workmen helping to restore the parish churchyard in Falkirk uncovered a few old gravestones which had survived the great cull of 1962. Back then, the graveyard had been cleared and many fine stones were consigned to the dustbin of history . . . actually they were smashed up and used as bottoming for the road into the crematorium.

Most of the new discoveries were in poor condition but one was nearly perfect, a stone which declared: THE BURIAL GROUND OF WILLIAM GLEN OF FORGANHALL JP WHO DIED 24 AUGUST 1808 AGED 64. William Glen of Forganhall - the man who "dinged doon the toon steeple” in 1803 and so upset the Falkirk bairns that his name has forever been associated with this vile deed. As Willie Shakespeare reminds us “The evil that men do live after them, the good is oft interred with their bones”. That is certainly true of William Glen.

He seems to have made his money in the West Plean area as a distiller of some kind and purchased an estate in Dalderse which he called Forganhall, a name with family connections. He set about being a good and valued citizen and served as a Road Trustee and a Justice of the Peace. During the Napoleonic Wars he famously offered a guinea (over a pound) to any man from Stirlingshire willing to enlist in the navy to fight for King and Country. This was no small amount back then and suggests that William was doing fairly well. How many brave hearts collected their bounty is not recorded.

In the early 1800s he turned his attention to the town steeple and the little square tolbooth building standing behind it. As the drawing shows that steeple had a clock and an unusual two-part roof/spire like those we see in Holland or Flanders …. or even Culross. It had been built in 1697 to replace an even earlier steeple about which we know almost nothing. Now both it, and the tolbooth which held the jail cells, were in a ruinous condition with some reports saying the steeple was leaning slightly eastwards.

Glen decided to lease the building from William Forbes of Callendar and refurbish it with new shops. In the written agreement with Forbes he was forbidden to dig around the foundations or do anything that would threaten the steeple but, of course, he did just that. As a result of the illegal excavations the lean became more pronounced and there was now a large crack in the stone work. The authorities decided to have it "cast to the ground” to save the bairns from disaster.

The owners of the steeple, the famously penniless Stentmasters, demanded compensation and after years of legal claims and counter claims Glen was found liable in 1811 and made to pay £450 towards the cost of a new steeple. Actually he didn’t pay anything because as the gravestone tells us he died in 1808. His heirs had to find the cash and in 1814 the Stentmasters raised the new steeple which still graces our town centre. When we admire this iconic building we should remember the rascal William Glen without whose carelessness we might not have anything to admire.