Field Visit
Date 24 August 1993
Event ID 923118
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/923118
NY17SE 4 NY 1668 7268
The site of the medieval parish church and burial-ground of Hoddom lies on a slight eminence on the haughland of the River Annan. The church itself probably occupied a terrace in the NE corner of the present burial-ground, an area respected by all but a few 19th-century memorials. A stretch of wall, 4.6m long, on the N, towards the E end of the terrace, is probably all that is visible of its walls. The masonry is generally square and survives to three courses, now almost entirely turf-covered (0.85m thick and up to 0.8m high). An enclosure (roughly 5m square overall and formed of unhewn stone) immediately to the S of the extant length of wall, is probably the burial-enclosure of the Brooks of Hoddom and not the remains of the medieval church, as has been suggested by A E Truckell. The terrace measures roughly 20m from E to W by about 10m transversely. On the W, the ground shelves gently towards the gate of the burial-ground, while on the S it drops more steeply. On the N, the wall of the burial-ground is clearly secondary to the church (on the basis of the surviving fragment of its N wall and its projection westwards) and it is likely that the site of the burial-ground has been significantly contracted on this side, its original extent probably being roughly marked by the present edge of the cultivated ground. At the W edge of the terrace, at the foot of the wall enclosing the burial-ground, amid a heap of gravestone fragments and other dressed stones, there are two items of note: a monolithic arch-pointed and chamfered window-head (which has been re-used, one edge being cut by a rectangular chase); and, beside it, what may be a voussoir from a segmental arch.
The topography of the site in relation to that of the Anglian minster (NY17SE 56) would suggest that the site of the British/Anglian church was on the higher escarpment and that it was only in the medieval period that the ecclesiastical focus shifted to the immediate haughland of the River Annan, the medieval church presumably re-utilising a large part of the fabric of the Anglian minster, which itself drew upon masonry derived from the Roman fort at Birrens (NY27NW 4.00).
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS, PC), 24 August 1993.
Listed as Hoddom, church and burial-ground; Northumbrian cross-slabs, cross-base, medieval graveslabs, architectural fragments (mainly in Dumfries Museum or lost); crozier drops (NMS KC 3 and BM 51.7-15.5). RCAHMS 1997.
