Few medieval roof carvings have a Hollywood pedigree. One stone gargoyle, the paisley abbey gargoyle in Renfrewshire, Scotland, does. Its face takes its cues from the Xenomorph in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien.
The Instagram art account Artist shared the story behind the gargoyle, and the image spread quickly after that. The paisley abbey gargoyle sits high on the church, where it directs rain away from the stonework. Its creator expected the design to be rejected, since it was a homage to a hostile creature.
A commission for twelve new gargoyles
Stonemason David Lindsay, a Traditional Buildings Health Check Inspector, explains the origins of the carving in a blog post for the Stirling City Heritage Trust. In the early 1990s, his firm won a contract to supply twelve hand-carved gargoyles. They formed part of the restoration of the roof and parapet of the 13th century Nave. The main contractor was Stirling Stone Group Ltd.
The building is a Category A listed structure. Its original carvings had decayed and were replaced in the 1950s with featureless blocks, so no designs survived to copy. The client asked for contemporary designs instead. The main article dates the remodelling to 1991, while Lindsay’s sketch is dated 1993.
Lindsay drew his entry late one evening in 1993. His reference was a worn VHS copy of Alien and a small plastic figurine. He expected the sketch to be rejected, because it was a homage to a hostile creature. Of roughly twenty proposals, twelve were chosen for carving. His paisley abbey gargoyle was among them.
Film-inspired creature design has a long history of divided fans, as a recent Resident Evil film embraces iconic game visuals shows, with its own take on borrowed monstrous imagery.
Why the paisley abbey gargoyle and its medieval kin were built
Lindsay notes that nobody can say for certain why medieval builders carved gargoyles. Some may have been meant to warn people away from sin. Others may have guarded the building and its occupants. What is clear is their practical job. Each one served as a waterspout, carrying rainwater away from walls and foundations.
The Paisley gargoyles followed that tradition. Each had a channel to carry water, and each was carved differently. Lindsay and two other carvers from his team each worked on their own designs, drawing on 20th-century culture for inspiration.
Carving Clashach sandstone by hand
The team worked in Clashach sandstone, a fine-grained, durable stone from a quarry near Elgin in Moray. The blocks arrived sawn to size, each weighing about 500 kilograms. They were pale buff in colour. Each gargoyle took roughly four weeks, with carvers working typical eight-hour days.
Modern diamond-tipped saws speed up the early stages. Still, the final shaping depends on a mallet and chisel. Tungsten carbide tips keep modern chisels sharp far longer than older tools, but the basic hand tools have changed little in centuries. Stone carving leaves no room for correction. Once a cut is made, the carver must live with it.
For more on how sculpture and craft can carry meaning beyond their makers’ intentions, see this look at the Mindcraft Project’s sculptural dialogues in Danish design, which explores hand-made objects with a similar seriousness.
Lindsay served a traditional apprenticeship in the early 1980s. His earlier work included corner spires for the restoration of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. He says he learned to capture the essence of a figure quickly, without spending time on fine detail that few people would see from the ground.
From front page to viral sensation
Before the stones went up, Lindsay’s team contacted The Scotsman in Edinburgh. The paper ran a feature about the carvings on its front page. The gargoyles then went into the masonry and faded into the background of the town’s built landscape.
That changed when someone posted a photograph of the carving online. Someone photographed the carving and posted the picture online, noting that the paisley abbey gargoyle resembled the creature from Alien. Lindsay says the story spread within a short time. It reached the top of search engine results and appeared on Yahoo News. Several tabloids ran speculative pieces, and the press began calling his family for comment.
BBC News broadcast an interview with the minister of Paisley Abbey about the carving. The clip below shows that discussion.
The paisley abbey gargoyle remains a working part of the building. It is a stone waterspout, a record of a 1990s restoration, and a reminder that a late-night sketch can outlast the film that inspired it.
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Frequently asked questions
What inspired the face of the Paisley Abbey gargoyle?
The gargoyle’s face takes its cues from the Xenomorph in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien. The sculptor, David Lindsay, used a worn VHS copy of the film and a small plastic figurine as references.
What stone was used to carve the Paisley Abbey gargoyles?
The team carved the gargoyles from Clashach sandstone, a fine-grained, durable stone from a quarry near Elgin in Moray. The blocks were pale buff in colour and weighed about 500 kilograms each.
How long did it take to carve each Paisley Abbey gargoyle?
Each gargoyle took roughly four weeks, with carvers working typical eight-hour days. Modern diamond-tipped saws sped up the early stages, but the final shaping was done by hand with a mallet and chisel.
Why were new designs created for the Paisley Abbey gargoyles?
The original carvings had decayed and were replaced in the 1950s with featureless blocks, so no designs survived to copy. The client therefore asked for contemporary designs during the early 1990s restoration of the roof and parapet.
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