Publication Account

Date 1980

Event ID 1018001

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1018001

Little is known of the parish church of Lochmaben which received an early mention in 1202 when it was gifted to Guisborough in Yorkshire. It maintained its connection with Guisborough until after the Wars of Independence and was at the Reformation a prebend of Lincluden (Wilson, 1968, 5). The original church – dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene - stood in the old churchyard behind High Street along the shore of Kirk Loch. It was a Gothic edifice which was. taken down in 1818 and replaced by Lochmaben Church which stands at the southern end of High Street. Although the church was burned during the 1593 feud between the Maxwells and Johnstons and many may denounce this as sacrilege, one local writer of the last century argued passionately that the deliberate demolition of the Gothic edifice in 1818 was a still greater profanation of things sacred' (Graham, 1865, 123). Two pre-Reformation items which escaped the demolisher's gunpowder in 1818 are church bells which are still in use today.

Information from ‘Historic Lochmaben: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1980).