Cambuslang Awakening 

‘There was also a Great Awakening in America, which Somers emigrants joined. The whole family adopted revivalist principles. So did their Loudon and Buchanan descendents. Janet was the most deeply affected. Almost overnight, she became a troubled adolescent. She ate less, tried to be perfect and was often morose.’

 This is a quote from The Claudians: gardens, landscapes, reason and faith: John Claudius Loudon and Claudius Buchanan, Tom Turner (Kindle, 2024). 

More about the Cambuslang Awakening 

Also known as the Cambuslang Revival or Cambuslang Work (or Wark) it was a religious revival in the early 18th century. It was characterised by a fervent outpouring of religious enthusiasm, emotional conversions, and heightened spiritual experiences among the local population. This was seen as God’s ‘work.’ Like the First Great Awakening in America (in the 1730s), the Cambuslang Revival was inspired by the English evangelists, George Whitefield and the Wesley brothers.

The Cambuslang revival began in 1742 under the ministry of Scottish Presbyterian minister William McCulloch, who preached passionately about repentance, salvation, and personal piety. Large crowds gathered for open-air meetings and religious services in the valley behind the Old Parish Church. This area was shown on the Roy Map as ‘Whitefield’s Amphitheatre’ and is now a public park, often called the Preaching Braes. The Revival had a profound impact on the social and moral fabric of Cambuslang. Through Claudius Somers, an elder in the Kirk, it became the context in which his two grandsons were brought up: Claudius Buchanan and John Claudius Loudon. 

The Cambuslang Revival, led by William McCulloch on the Preaching Braes in Cambuslang was the most significant 18th-century religious revival in the history of the  Scottish Presbyterian Kirk. George Whitefield is the preacher shown on the illustrations and it is probable that the black and white image on the right is the only surviving image of Cambuslang's old kirk. It was rebuilt after the Awakening and, in the 21st century, became a community centre and a golf school.