Operated by the Govan Heritage Trust charity, admission is free, although visitors can make donations and the museum's gift-shop raises money for the upkeep of the property and its collections.

The carved stones are thought to have been created to commemorate the power and wealth of the rulers of the Brittonic Kingdom of Strathclyde,[1] which was part of Yr Hen Ogledd ('The Old North').

However, fourteen 'recumbent gravestones' (funerary markers laid flat over the grave), which had not been taken into the church and were lying next to the east wall of the churchyard, were thought to have been destroyed when the neighbouring Harland and Wolff shipyard plating shed was demolished in 1973,[2][3] with the damaged early medieval stones being mistaken for debris.

Notable finds include a fragment known as the 'Govan Warrior,' which was discovered in September of 2023 in the south-east corner of the graveyard, an area where excavations are unearthing an early medieval gravel roadway.

The contemporary Annals of Ulster tell us that Vikings destroyed the twin citadel at Dumbarton Rock, strategically located at the confluence of the Clyde and Leven rivers, in AD 870 after a four-month siege.

[10] With the king of Alt Clut, Artgal, either killed or enslaved by the Vikings,[10] Govan and Partick, further up the river, gained great strategic importance as a new dynasty was established for the successor realm, known as the Kingdom of Strathclyde ('the valley of the Clyde').

[12] These large sandstone blocks, seemingly designed to resemble Scandinavian longhouses, were found exclusively in areas of northern Britain where Vikings settled.

Because the site has been in continual use since it was first established, it is difficult to tell what the original church looked like, but excavations in the 1990s revealed the foundations of a wall next to the south-east corner of the present building.

Based on depth and method of construction, it is thought that these foundations, which consist of boulders placed in a trench with smaller stones used to create a level surface, supported an early medieval wooden church [1].

The Govan Sarcophagus is a monumental stone coffin with an ornately carved exterior; it was rediscovered when the church sexton was digging a grave in the south-east corner of the churchyard in December 1855,[24] surrounded by roots from two elm trees.

No human remains were found with the sarcophagus, so it is thought that it was buried at an earlier date to protect the monument, perhaps during the Scottish Reformation when iconoclasm was common practice.

One face of the sarcophagus shows a hunting scene of a horseman chasing a stag, perhaps accompanied by a dog, a motif frequently used in Pictish art that is thought to convey an association with royalty and power.

The rest of the space on the sarcophagus is filled with panels of median-incised interlace, some of which represent snakes, which a relatively common motif in Insular sculpture, thought to be a symbol of death and resurrection.

The Sun Stone is heavily eroded, but it is decorated with a large boss from which emerge four snakes, arranged in such a way that it appears sun-like, above an angular interlace panel.

While the stone appears plain today, this is because it has been severely eroded and was also reused as an Early Modern grave cover with carved initials; hints of a panel of interlace are preserved under the horseman.

The recumbent cross-slabs take up the largest proportion of the Govan Stones collection; twenty-one of the originally recorded thirty-seven are on display, arranged around the interior walls of the church.

While the cross-slabs vary in size, in shape and in the decorative motifs used, there are some features they share: they each exhibit a cross with an incised border, which consistently divides the stone into at least two panels.

[41] The British Museum affirmed the importance of the collection when they took one of the hogback stones to London as part of the exhibition Vikings: Life and Legend (March 2014 to June 2014).

The Channel 4 archeology programme Time Team dug in the graveyard of the Govan Old in the fourth episode of series 4, recorded in summer 1996 and broadcast early 1997.