Banff, High Street, St Mary's Church

Photographic survey of buildings in Banff by the Scottish National Buildings Record in 1954.

What is perhaps the first reference to Banff parish church occurs in a charter of Matthew, Bishop of Aberdeen, to the ,monastery at Arbroath in the late twelfth century, a grant confirmed by Pope Innocent ID in 1200 (Cramond, 1893, 12). The church occupied a site on level ground which stretches southwards from the castle towards the shore. It is reputed to have been rebuilt in 1471 (Smith, 1894-96, 124). The church was described as being in a ruinous way in 1749 and the bell and clock were removed shortly thereafter in 1761. A new parish church was built in the High Street in 1789-90, with the old structure being demolished in 1797. Fragments of the latter building still survive. The south aisle containing the tomb of Sir Walter Ogilvy remains, along with a small part of the north wall of the nave to which is affixed a monument to the Bairds of Auchmedden. A fine collection of seventeenth-century headstones litter the graveyard.

Information from ‘Historic Banff: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1977).