Field Visit
Date October 1985
Event ID 1156415
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1156415
Symington, Parish Church and Burial-ground NS 3843 3141 NS33SE 21
This church stands within a walled burial-ground and although altered on a number of occasions, and heavily restored in 1919 and 1920, it retains much of its late 12th- or early 13th-century character. It is rectangular on plan and gable-ended (with an open trussed rafter roof), measuring 14.25m by 6.05m within walls 1.08m thick rising from a chamfered ground-course; a chamfered eaves-course returns across the E gable as an offset. Three semicircular-headed lights are disposed symmetrically in the gable and are framed internally by a strong, heavy hoodmould, with an unusually large billet ornament.
The base-slab of an aumbry (originally framed by an edge-roll), which incorporates a piscina, is set within the sill of a window at the E end of the S wall. Entrance doorways are situated in the Wand S walls. In the 17th century a belfry, possibly incorporating some medieval work, was erected on the E gable; the skewput at the SE angle bears the anthropomorphic representation of a head. In 1797 a galleried N aisle was added, and lofts (subsequently removed) were installed on the Wand E. Jordan the parson of Symington is on record in 1165; the church was subsequently granted to the monastery at Fail (NS42NW 2).
RCAHMS 1985, visited (IMS) October 1985.
(Stat Acct, iii, 1793, 402; NSA, v, Ayr, 569; Paterson 1863-6, i, 735-6; Chalmers 1887-1902, vi, 513-14; Scott 1915-61, iii, 72; Ritchie 1951, 38-40; Dillon 1954, 76; Dillon 1957b, 128-32; Cowan 1967, 194).
