Archaeology Notes

Event ID 838754

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/838754

NJ63SE 1.00 65007 32941

NJ63SE 1.01 NJ 65051 32954 Burial-Ground

See also NJ63SW 23.

(NJ 6503 3293) Stone Circle (NR) (site of)

OS 6" map, (1959)

A circle of 12 stones was flattened prior to the building of a church in the centre of the graveyard. One of the stones was dug up in 1821 and placed above ground near its find-spot (NSA 1845).

The first reference to a church at Culsalmond, dedicated to St Serf (Simpson 1943) was in 1178 AD when the lands were bestowed on Lindores Abbey (Laing 1876). In 1821, the foundations of a building, to which the last church was attached, were dug out revealing two skeletons, laid side by side. This was superceded by a church, dedicated to St Andrew, built in 1789 and incorporating a 1619 bird-cage belfry (Eeles and Clouston 1960).

A perforated stone was found in the churchyard (J G Callander 1903).

NSA 1845; W D Simpson 1843; A Laing 1876; J G Callander 1903; F C Eeles and R W M Clouston 1960.

(Church) 1791; 17th-cent. belfry, two-storey mort-house in kirkyard.

G Hay 1957.

No trace of the stone circle, or of the stone set up in 1821. The church built 1789 remains, unroofed. The belfry in its W gable is dated 1680, not 1619. A large scale plan (information from plan of the lands of Williamston, 1770 [G Brown]) dated 1770, shows the predecessor to this church, at NJ 6500 3292, some 12.0m to the S, measuring c. 20.0m E-W by 6.0m N-S, but there is no ground trace of it.

Visited by OS (NKB) 17 March 1969.

Brown, G (1770) Plan of the Lands of Williamston noted.

NMRS, MS/712/63.

(Classified as Stone Circle; Church; Burial-Ground; Morthouse). Nothing is visible of a stone circle that is said to have stood close to the foot of the S flank of Hill of Tillymorgan, a site now occupied by the former parish church and burial-ground of Culsalmond. The church, a barn-like structure of late 18th-century date, is now a roofless shell, and the removal of much of the harling has revealed the large rubble blocks and pinning of its walls. The walls are pierced by six round-headed windows, four of them in the S wall and one in each gable, where there are also doorways. The W gable is surmounted by an elaborate birdcage bellcote, the E gable by a ball finial bearing the date 1791. An external stair against the N wall led to lofts in the interior, though the only trace of them now visible are the joist-holes in the walls. The walls incorporate numerous fragments of re-used stone, including red-sandstone roll-mouldings, which are visible at various points in the interior and also in the exterior of the W gable. Those in the interior are as follows:

N wall: W end of wall, about 0.5m below the wall-head; three fragments W of loft door, to either side of a socket 2.5m above ground-level; and E of loft door, in a niche 2.5m above ground-level.

E gable: N jamb of window.

S wall: adjacent to E splay of first window from the W; E splay of second window.

W gable: S jamb of window; N jamb of window is a lintel or sill of small chamfered window about 0.5m wide.

The exterior of the W gable contains two re-used stones, one a chamfered block of sandstone below the S jamb of window, the other a jamb from a small window in the head of gable.

A derelict mort-house, comprising a semi-subterranean vault below a ground-floor watching chamber, stands in the NE corner of the burial-ground.

Visited by RCAHMS (IF, JRS), 21 February 1996.

NJ 6502 3293 A standing building survey and excavation was undertaken at the Culsalmond Mort House, between the 8th-9th March 2007, prior to a renovation project.

H K Murray, 2007.