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Field Visit
Date 27 September 1993
Event ID 1149272
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1149272
NY08SE 5 0812 8249.
The medieval parish church of Lochmaben occupied the highest point within the present burial-ground to the E of the Kirk Loch, close to a holy well (NY08SE 6) and in the shadow of the Bruce castle (NY08SE 7). The juxtaposition of church and castle suggests that the church was a proprietorial foundation of the Bruce's.
The site of the church is evident as two contiguous rectangular depressions about 0.4m in depth, near the centre of the burial-ground; the western depression measures 12.8m from E to W by 8.8m transversely, the eastern 18m by 9m. This suggests that the church was probably a two-cell structure measuring about 27m in length overall, comparable to that at Buittle (NX85NW 1).
The earliest gravestone impinging on the church site is dated 1823. The E end of the church now lies beneath the obelisk raised in memory of William Jardine.
Various dressed stones are incorporated in the walls of the burial-ground and neighbouring manse garden, and some may be derived from the medieval church. A square block (0.20m by 0.19m and 0.30m thick), bearing the incised outline of what seems to be a pair of tweezers, now lying beneath a table-tomb, could be a fragment from a medieval graveslab. There are a number of 18th-century gravestones within the burial-ground.
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS), 27 September 1993.
Listed as church, burial-ground, long cist and medieval graveslab.
RCAHMS 1997.
