The alien gargoyle at Paisley Abbey is getting a lot of attention lately.
Maybe they are trying to compete with the Washington National Cathedral’s Darth Vader gargoyle?
The Paisley Abbey was originally built in the 13th century. Its 12 medieval gargoyles had been scaring visitors to the abbey for hundreds of years but eventually they crumbled into a “very bad state.”
11 of the Paisley Abbey gargoyles were taken down in 1991 but eventually the building was renovated. Apparently, this is how the alien gargoyle came to be made by a contractor out of Edinburgh.
Reverend Alan Birss says the alien gargoyle on Paisley Abbey wasn’t planned that way:
“I think it was a stonemason having a bit of fun. Perhaps the film was fairly new when they were carving this and if he was thinking of an alien perhaps the alien from the film was his idea of an alien. I’m sure he wasn’t deliberately copying the alien in the film. It was just a concept of an alien. Mr Birss said that someone had pointed out the similarity as far back as 1997. But it obviously did not pick up and take off then like it has now.”
Otherwise, the Paisley Abbey now features updated grotesques of the more normal sort. Church officials say “people will be surprised and delighted by everything they see outside and inside.”
