Field Visit
Date 14 June 1913
Event ID 1087991
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1087991
The parish church of Oldhamstocks lies within its churchyard at the western end of the village. It is a comparatively modern building of scant merit architecturally, built for the most part on the foundations of an early church, of which only a portion of the east gable and certain courses of masonry at the ground level remain. Still there is evidence that the earlier church was oblong on plan and had a square tower, somewhat broader than its modern successor, projecting from the centre of the west gable. Across the east gable of the present building there returns a boldly splayed c. 14th century double base course, 2 feet 6 inches high with a total projection of 11 ½ inches, which apparently returned along the other walls of the church. On the south-west angle of the building at a height of 12 feet from the ground is set a 16th century inclining sundial, which is canted from the south wall and has, with its projecting gnomon, been wrought from a single stone. The top is hollowed to form one dial; a portion of the half its is cut back at an angle to form two other dials, one to the east the other to the west, while a fourth dial, below the hollow dial on top, is moulded like a Gothic rib and serves also as a gnomon. The treatment thus resembles that of the terminal sundial set on a buttress at the southwest angle of Cockburnspath Parish Church.*
A vaulted building (fig. 111, plan), measuring 14 feet 9 inches from north to south and 17 feet 2 inches from east to west within walls 3 feet thick, projects eastward from the east gable. It is entered through a lintelled doorway in the south wall, is lit by a late Gothic three-light window in the east wall and is ceiled with a semicircular barrel-vault covered exteriorly with stone slabs.. The head of the east window is filled with tracery of a peculiarly rude and debased description; the mullions and jambs are grooved for glass.
Exteriorly the window is flanked on either side by a heraldic panel. On the northern, under mantling and a scroll bearing the motto ‘Keep Traist’ (?), is a shield charged per pale: dexter on a chevron a rose between two lions combatant, in base a buckle in form of a heart (Hepburn of Blackcastle); sinister three pelicans vulned and on a chief three stars (or mullets) (? Paterson). A John Paterson was parson of Oldhamstocks in 1637 (1). On the southern panel is a shield parted as to the lower third of the field, the upper portion containing the initials T H (Thomas Hepburn, parson of Oldhamstocks) and his arms as above. On the lower portion of the shield are the initials M S (Margaret Sinclair, his wife), an engrailed cross (for Sinclair) and the date 1581.
The terminal in form of a pine-apple surmounting the apex of the gable appears to be of 17th century workmanship and is possibly coeval with the entrance.
There can be no doubt that this eastern building was erected as a burial aisle in post Reformation times-possibly in 1581-and not as a chapel or chancel.
HISTORICAL NOTE. The original church of ‘Aldhampstocks’ was dedicated to St. Michael (2). ‘Adulf priest of Aldehamstoc’ was one of the witnesses to a document of 1127 (3). Thomas de Hunsingoure was ‘parson of the church of Aldhamstoke’ in 1296, when he appears upon Ragman Roll (4). Patrick Sinclair was ‘rector of Aldhampstocks’ in 1450 (5). The Thomas Hepburn referred to above was attached to Queen Mary's court and was forfeited for treason in having aided in her escape from Lochleven Castle in 1568 and the subsequent proceedings (6).
RCAHMS 1924, visited 14 June 1913
* Inventory of Monts. in Berwickshire p. 23; cf. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. vol. xxiv., pp. 181-3; cf. also p.173.
(1) Milne Home MSS. p. 193; (2) Home MSS in Hist. MSS. xii., App. viii., p. 87; (3) Early Scottish Charters, p. 60; (4) Cal. of Docts. ii., p. 212; (5) Home MSS. No. 124; (6) Acta Parl. (19 Aug. 1568) vol. iv., pp. 49, 52.
