Field Visit

Date 6 August 1996

Event ID 1022296

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1022296

The parish church and graveyard of Tough lie on a sloping site on the W side of the Lyne Burn. The graveyard, which slopes from SW to NE, is irregular in plan, and is enclosed by a rubble and mortar wall, beyond which on the E and SE the ground drops steeply towards the burn. On the SE, where the slope is steepest, the difference in level between the interior and exterior of the enclosure is up to about 1.0m. A modern extension to the burial ground has been added to the NE.

There are no visible remains of the predecessor of the present nineteenth century building which stands in the upper, SW end of the graveyard. The enclosure has been extended here and terraced into the slope to accomodate the church. The graveyard contains many nineteenth and twentieth century headstones, and a number of ledger stones of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The oldest legible monument is a headstone, dated 1724, propped against the N wall.

Lying against the W wall of the graveyard is a mortsafe, comprising a tapering iron cage of riveted iron bars, to each end of which is fastened a roughly shaped granite block, the whole measuring overall 2.5m in length, 0.65m in maximum breadth, and 0.37m in height. Built into the wall immediately above this is a stone, 0.44m long by 0.16m high, which bears the date 1732 in incised characters, within a rectangular frame.

Visited by RCAHMS (IF), 6 August 1996.