Appointed by South Lanarkshire Council, heritage restoration specialists Covanburn Contracts delivered the restoration. 

In June 2024, a fire caused severe damage to the bandstand. The timber elements of the structure were destroyed, but enough of the core cast-iron frame and roof structure was maintained to make restoration possible.

In the process of restoring the bandstand, the council used a team of people, such as an architect who studied existing photographs of the old bandstand to attain key information concerning the original design. 

Covanburn used those findings to deliver a key part of the project: matching the structural and design detail against historic catalogues from the long-demolished MacFarlane Foundry, later known as the Saracen Foundry, in Glasgow.

During the 1980’s, the foundry was formed, and many of the country’s Victorian-era style bandstands, fountains, railings, gates and more were created from the foundry’s designs. But after its closure in the 1960s, a lot of the foundry’s internal records and archives were lost. 

The remaining copies of the foundry’s catalogues are held in archives including Glasgow City Archives and East Dunbartonshire Archives. 

During 2009, Historic Scotland published a two-volume set of MacFarlane’s Castings, which was critical for the restoration of the bandstand. 

In order to recreate the missing pieces of the bandstand, Covanburn needed to locate the original technical detail.

Once Covanburn had found the technical information needed from MacFarlane’s Castings, instructions were then sent to David McGregor of McGregor Patterns, who made the physical patterns needed in order to create moulds. 

Laings Foundry then created those moulds before the cast iron was poured. The work meant that Covanburn had the key parts ready to be painted and installed on site.

Some parts needed to be significantly recreated from original designs, while other parts only needed elements of them to be recreated. This involved cutting old parts of the ironwork remaining from the bandstand so that exact copies could be made. 

The old parts and the newly-created parts were then reinstalled. 

Covanburn Contracts managing director Alex Stewart said: “Overtoun Bandstand means a great deal to the local residents of Rutherglen and it has been a real honour for us to restore it.

“Heritage restoration projects like this require careful planning and often quite a lot of investigation.

“There’s a lot of background work, and it takes time to do the necessary research and work through the potential challenges.”

Stewart added: “Ultimately, that time and effort is greatly rewarded once we see the restoration coming together.

“Victorian-era styles are so iconic and recognisable, and we find that communities have become very protective of the structures remaining from that period.”