Archaeology Notes

Event ID 677667

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/677667

NN70SW 12 70664 02479

(NN 7066 0247) Kilmadock Church (NR).

OS 6" map, (1958).

NN70SW 59 70704 02383 Manse

The parish church, dedicated to St Aedh, stood at Kilmadock until about 1756, when a new church was built at Doune. It belonged to the Priory of Inchmahome. A small part, chiefly the east gable, remained in 1845.

Statistical Account (OSA) 1798; New Statisitcal Account (NSA) 1845; Fasti Eccles Scot (H Scott ed.) 1923.

The remains of this church consist of the east gable, standing to a max. height of c.5.0m, and approximately 4.0m of the south wall forming

the SE angle. The walls are 0.8m thick and burial vaults are attached east and north sides of the remains. The numerous head-stones in the grave-yard appear to be mainly 19th century and later.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 18 October 1968.

The Annat Burn which runs nearby the church, may derive from the Celtic Annat indicating the site of an early church.

W J Watson 1926.

NN 7066 0247 A watching brief was undertaken in June 2006 during repairs to the cemetery wall surrounding St Aedh's Church (Kilmadock Old Parish Church). Most of the work involved repairs to the upper part of the wall, but in two areas the upper courses of the wall had collapsed outwards and the lower courses had to be removed to allow reinstatement. This necessitated cutting back very slightly (c 300 mm) into the cemetery fill and underlying fluvioglacial subsoil.

In one area of the wall on the SW side a 7m long section of wall required reconstruction from foundation level. A quantity of human bone (1.05kg including soil in bone cavities) and three adult molar teeth were recovered from the black soil of the cemetery fill mixed among the stones of the collapsed wall. The bones, all broken and incomplete, comprised: fragments of skull, ribs, vertebrae and long bones. Most of the bones occurred within a 1.50m section of wall collapse. They were clearly not in situ and it is likely that these human remains represent a previous disturbance of a burial, or burials, during an earlier repair to the cemetery wall. Evidence for this earlier repair was provided by modern cement in the matrix of collapsed wall stones and black soil of the cemetery fill. By contrast, the 5m long section of collapsed wall on the NW side yielded only one fragment of human bone. No other features of archaeological interest were encountered.

Sponsor: Kilmadock Heritage Society.

L J Masters, 2006.