Field Visit

Date 10 July 1996

Event ID 1013664

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1013664

The parish church of Strathdon stands on a terrace on the S side of the River Don. The present building is a large gothic structure of mid-nineteenth century date, with a prominent steeple and spire. No remains of the predecessor of this building are visible. The graveyard is rectangular in plan, level in its N half around the church, but sloping upwards in its S half, and enclosed by a rubble and mortar wall. A large mausoleum of Egyptian style stands against the E wall of the graveyard, the burial place of a Major David Mitchell (d.1841) and his first wife (d.1829). In addition to many headstones of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there are numerous eighteenth century ledger-stones, but grass and moss render the majority illegible. There are two stones of the ‘Rathmuriel’ type, one of 1767, propped against the kirkyard wall immediately S of the mausoleum, the other beside a burial aisle in the NW corner of the kirkyard. A number of stones have been incorporated in the exterior of the S wall of the church, including the oldest legible, the finely carved sandstone monument of Mr Donald McSween, minister of Strathdon (d.1730).

Visited by RCAHMS (IF), 10 July 1996.