View of gravestone with tools of a watchmaker, 1772.

Description View of gravestone with tools of a watchmaker, 1772.

Date 1980

Collection Papers of Betty Willsher, historian, St Andrews, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 789850

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of J 6586 S

Scope and Content Detail of gravestone of Margaret Ramsay, Inverarity Church and Churchyard, Inverarity, Angus This shows a carved shield in the centre of the gravestone, surrounded by a helmet and mantling (leafy draperies). Within the shield are the tools of a watchmaker, including an arm holding a hammer, tweezers, hand vices, pliers and clamps. The carving is so detailed and exact that the watchmaker must have allowed to mason to work from his actual tools when completing the carving. Scottish gravestones feature a wealth of imagery and symbolic devices which represent trade emblems, symbols of death and resurrection, and Biblical scenes. They offer a fascinating insight into how our ancestors saw themselves and how they wanted to be remembered, as well as providing a store of information for people interested in family or local history, and folk art. This shows the gravestone of Margaret Ramsay, who died in 1772. It is inscribed: 'This stone was erected by DAVID/RAMSAY Watchmaker in Forfar in/Memory of his sister MARGARET/RAMSAY who died the twentieth/Day of January one 1000 seven/hundred and seventy two years/aged twenty one year two months/and two weeks/The good thou hast a mind to do/Let it be quickly done/We every day example see/How soon our glass is run'. This rhyming epitaph refers to David Ramsay's trade as watchmaker, with its reference to hourglasses running out. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference BWA/57/S

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/789850

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap