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Field Visit

Date 25 April 1925

Event ID 1099269

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1099269

Old Parish Church, Tulliallan.

This church stands in its churchyard, roofless and decaying, less than half a mile north of the Market Cross of Kincardine and about 250 yards west of the modern mansion of Tulliallan Castle. It was built in 1675, and was in use till about 1825 when a new church was erected (1). It is rectangular with a transseptal aisle on the north and a square tower at the west end. The main structure is 67 feet long and 26 feet 8 inches broad over walls. The aisle, which is 26 feet 4 inches wide, projects 20 ¾ feet, while the tower, 11 ¼ feet wide, projects 8 feet 8 inches. The side walls, 18 feet high, are 2 feet 7 inches thick and have a cavetto at the eaves. The gables are 3 feet 1 inch thick and are finished with a moulded tabling. The masonry is of random rubble with rusticated quoins at each corner.

The west doorway, which passes through the tower, has been treated in the classic Renaissance style of the period, having rusticated stonework, a semi-circular head, pilasters at either side, and a cornice. Above is a panel space flanked with small pilasters and scrolls, and surmounted by a triangular pediment bearing in the tympanum the date 1675. A staple fixed in the pilaster on the north side has probably been for 'jougs.' The tower itself, which is flanked at ground-floor level by two lintelled windows in the west gable of the church, each 3 ½ feet high and 2 feet 2 inches wide, has two storeys and a bell-chamber, and is finished with a concave pyramidal slated roof. The entrance passage has, on either side, a recess with a small built-up opening which may have been a window. There is a round-headed window in each of the three open sides at first-floor level, and a larger one in each wall of the bell-chamber. The sill-course of the bell-chamber windows continues all round as a string, and there is a higher string linking ' the windows together at the level of the springers. A cornice is carried round under the eaves.

The south wall contains four regularly spaced round-headed two-light windows, 4 feet 7 inches wide. Only the central two have transoms, as the outer windows, being placed above doors 7 feet in height, have their sills at a higher level. These two doors are original, and their jambs and lintels are double-chamfered with backset margins, as are those of the windows. A third doorway, under the second mullioned window from the east, is of a later time, as is also a window towards the east end.

A pointed bar-tracery window, 8 ½ feet wide with two mullions and with transoms only in the side lights, remains complete in the east gable, while a similar window, 6 ½ feet wide, survives in the aisle gable, but has lost its tracery. There is a door in the north-west corner of the aisle, while there is another, 6 feet high and 3 feet wide in its east wall at a level to give entrance to a gallery. A door in the north wall of the main structure, beside which is a small inserted window, has led to a gallery in the west end of the church, which in turn communicated with the upper storeys of the tower. In both cases the forestairs have disappeared. There has been a similar gallery in the eastern part, but this has no door from the outside.

The rear arches of the round-headed windows are segmental, but those of the pointed windows are round.

PULPIT. The old pulpit is preserved in the morthouse at the churchyard entrance. It is made of oak, 3 ½ feet in height from base to cornice. Its semi-circular front, 2 ½ feet in diameter, has moulded panels between pilasters, and the door is similarly treated.

RCAHMS 1933, visited 25 April 1925.

(1) Stat. Acct., xi, p. 556. Erskine Beveridge, Culross and Tulliallan, ii, p. 317.

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