Field Visit
Date June 1983
Event ID 1082923
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082923
This burial-ground is situated on a gently sloping hillside some 400m NE of Pennymore House, at a height of about 60m OD. There are no identifiable remains of an early boundary, but a circle of massive sycamores surrounds an 18th-century burial-enclosure, outside which there are a few uninscribed upright slabs, presumably gravemarkers.
The enclosure measures 8.6m square over walls of lime mortared rubble masonry which stand in most places to their original height of about 1.8m; they terminate in a bevelled rubble coping above a projecting course of slabs. A central opening in the SE wall, 1.2m wide, has projecting sandstone jambs and is rebated internally for a door. The NW wall is of gabled form, rising to a height of 2.7m, and incorporates three rectangular recesses, the central one having a bolection moulded surround of local schist. It contains a sandstone panel commemorating Gabriel, son of Dugald Clark of Braleckan, who died 25 February 1743 aged 17. The lower two-thirds of this panel is blank, and the flanking recesses are empty.
Dugald Clerk (d. c. 1753), whose son John was the last land-owning member of the Clerk (MacCleirich) family of Braleckan, held several public offices and built up a substantial estate including Pennymore, Auchindrain and Goatfield (en.1).
RCAHMS 1992, visited June 1983
