In 2011, The Friends of Glasgow Necropolis was given an anonymous donation of £14k.
The gates were officially opened on Remembrance Sunday 2011.
This donation, which was gift-aided, was specifically for the restoration of the oldest cast iron gates in Glasgow, designed by renowned architect David Hamilton in 1838. The gates were produced by one of the foremost cast iron Foundries in Glasgow the *Edington Foundry, (also known as the Phoenix Foundry 1804-1903) for the main entrance to the cemetery known as the Glasgow Necropolis.
As a result of the gift-aid, The Friends of Glasgow Necropolis was also able to fund the restoration of the gate of the Egyptian Vaults, also made by the Phoenix Foundry.
*Edington Foundry – One of Glasgow’s oldest iron foundries also known as the Phoenix Foundry. The firm was established by Thomas Edington at 52 Queen Street, and later moved to 38 and 50 Garscube Road, 1847-90, and then to 20 St. Vincent Lane. Other work by this foundry within the Glasgow Necropolis was a gate designed by John Park of Anderston to Jew’s Burying Ground, in 1832 which is now lost, and the gates to the Egyptian Vaults also designed by David Hamilton.
The largest commission was for the Phoenix Park Fountain, which was gifted to Glasgow by ‘Sweetie’ Buchanan, of John Buchanan & Bros. Ltd, a local confectioner, and which stood in Phoenix Park, Cowcaddens (c. 1891). Named after the foundry which occupied the site until 1890, the park was ‘restored’ in 1959, but the fountain, which had by then become derelict, was demolished.