Linwood parish church was built in 1860 as a chapel of ease. Prior to this the villagers had to travel to Kilbarchan parish church as linwood came under that parish at that time.
The foundation stone was laid on 18th June 1859 and a box containing coins and newspapers of that day were placed in the cavity. The builder was David Jeffery of Johnstone, whilst the first minister was the Revd James Wallace from Lochwinnoch. The population has steadily increased to 2,800 in 1871 and the local heritors and people of standing presented a petition to Kilbarchan session requesting that the church be granted a status of Quoad sacra, which was finally granted on 19th January 1880 to think the people of this vault today could be the people who first helped bring churches to Linwood is quite amazing.
The street leading to the church once had houses running either side to it as you looked to it from the west on the right was the half timers school and on the left was houses occupied by railway workers. By the 1960's the population had rocketed to over 20,000 and a new church was built in 1965 in the Clippens, the old church lingered on until the late 1970's until it was demolished.
www.paisley.org.uk has always been at the forefront of bringing the renfrewshire community the latest news and we can give all our readers the EXCLUSIVE news that the vault belongs to Lady Ann Spiers who lay in the family vault below where the church once stood, However there was a curse placed on the village saying a great disaster would befall it if she of the church were ever to be disturbed, the first part of Lady Ann Spiers curse came true less that five years after the church was demolished as the car factory closed with the loss of thousands of jobs.
how the church used to look
