Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016220
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016220
In medieval times St Mungo's ofStobo was the most important church in the upper Tweed Valley, centrally sited to serve the later parishes of Stobo, Lyne, Broughton, Drumelzier and Tweedsmuir, and close to the all-important east-west route through the Biggar Gap.
The original 12th century church comprised a rectangular nave, a square-headed chancel and a west tower which, not quite square to the church, may have been built separately and certainly seems to have been rebuilt above first-floor level in the 16th century. Surviving Norman features include the plain, semicircular south doorway-now approached through a 15th-16th century stone-bench lined porch whose jambs have been grooved by children, so it is said, sharpening slate-pencils in the days when the parish school was housed within! A further Norman doorway, now a window, stands in the north wall of the nave; in the north wall of the chancel, two roundheaded slits, originally 12th century, retain faint traces of painted decoration.
In the 15th-16th century, the porch and two windows were added to the south wall and a much wider window to the east chancel wall. Of similar pre-Reformation date are the lower parts of the north chapel, originally a mortuary or chantry chapel, and almost completely rebuilt in 1928.
The church has some fine monuments, notably three recumbent tombstones set in the north chapel walls. One commemorates Robert Vessy, died 1473, sometime vicar of S toboi another an unknown warrior. Probably dating to the first half 16th century, this reveals a grotesque, crudely inscribed figure of an armoured man lying on his back, hands clasped on his chest and feet splayed. The third stone, fragmentary, bears an incised mill-rynd and probably recalls a miller. Considerably earlier is part of a 12th century coped stone, with a shingle-type decoration.
Outside, a set ofjougs-a favourite early 18th century instrument of ecclesiastical discipline- hang beside the porch; in the churchyard stand a number of good 17th-18th century grayestones. John Noble's stone (1723) for instance, has a fine full-length figure in contemporary costume and with a flintlock guni that to Elisabeth Agnas and Elizabeth Thomson (1723) pictures the united family group on an end-panel to a table-tomb; yet another (c 1730) shows a youth, perhaps of the Cunningham family, wearing a longskirted coat with broad cuffs at the wrists. A remarkable collection.
Information from 'Exploring Scotland's Heritage: Lothian and Borders', (1985).
