BILLY Connolly once said that Glasgow “doesn’t care much for the living, but it really looks after the dead.”

The Glasgow Necropolis was one of the first cemeteries to be built in Britain after the new Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris inspired the need to change what happened to people when they die. This was a responsibility held by the local parish church until the 1832 Cemeteries Act meant that people could be buried for profit.

The land was bought in 1650 by the Merchants’ House and adopted the name Fir Park due to the many fir trees planted in the area. These were replaced with elm and willow trees in the early 1800s, but a surviving element that still dominates the land and can be seen for miles is the John Knox monument, which was laid in 1825.

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Owned by Glasgow City Council since 1966, Glasgow Necropolis is now one of the city’s most iconic landmarks where over 50,000 people have been laid to rest.

Paris is not the only European city to inspire the Necropolis – a bridge over the Molendinar Burn, used for funeral processions, is known as the Bridge of Sighs, like the bridge connecting the prison and interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace in Venice.

Glasgow Times: Glasgow NecropolisGlasgow Necropolis

More than 3500 ornate monuments are dotted throughout this classic Victorian cemetery with its park-like setting. Winding paths meander uphill to reach a summit with captivating views of the entire city, as well as its neighbour Glasgow Cathedral – the oldest building in the city.

An often-unrecognised part of the cemetery is the small section dedicated to Jewish burials. There are 57 graves here in the now expanded eastern part of the Necropolis – in fact, the very first burial in the cemetery is that of a Jewish jeweller, Joseph Levi, in 1832.

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Other notable burials include Charles SP Tennent, his brother Hugh and son Hugh Tennent. Their resting places face the city’s Wellpark Brewery, the birthplace of their beloved Tennent’s lager.

The John Henry Alexander monument is an ode to the actor-manager who had an impressive career at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal and the statue symbolises a stage and proscenium arch.

The resting place of Alexander McCall, Glasgow’s Chief Constable from 1870 to 1888, can be recognised by a Celtic cross designed by the world-famous Glasgow architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.