Midmar, Old Parish Church And Graveyard
Burial Ground (Period Unassigned), Church (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Midmar, Old Parish Church And Graveyard
Classification Burial Ground (Period Unassigned), Church (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) St Nidan's Church; Migmar; St Nidian's Church; St Nidan's Church
Canmore ID 18525
Site Number NJ70NW 11
NGR NJ 70207 05882
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/18525
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Midmar
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
St Nidan's Kirk, 1677. On site of earlier church, on knoll opposite Cunninghar motte - the medieval village presumably lay between them. Ruin of rubble-built church with fragment of bellcote and a quadripartite east window with masonry
transoms and mullions. Centre of south wall was raised to admit pulpit, c.1730, when internal plan was changed.
Taken from "Aberdeenshire: Donside and Strathbogie - An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Ian Shepherd, 2006. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
NJ70NW 11 70207 05882
See also NJ60NE 8. For adjacent motte, see NJ70NW 10.
For present parish church (NJ 6991 0650), see NJ60NE 12.
(NJ 7020 0587) Church (NR)
OS 6" map, (1959)
The parishes of Midmar and Kinairney were united on 6 February 1740.
H Scott 1915-61.
The old church of St Nidan, Midmar, situated in the hollow immediately to the eastward of the motte (NJ 7007 0595) bears the date 1677 on a lintel, but incorporates older materials. Simpson (1929), in fact, dates it to the 12th/13th century. It was given up in 1787 when the new church was erected on the site of the stone circle (NJ60NE 3).
W Kelly 1887; W D Simpson 1929.
Walls are still intact, but roofless.
OS Reviser M Roberts December 1955.
Also known as Migmar, both parsonage and vicarage fruits of this church were annexed at the Reformation to the benefice of Kincardine O'Neil, the cure being a vicarage pensionary. It appears probable that the church was orignally either a pendicle of the church of Kincardine O'Neil, or was granted between 1233/4 and 1274 to the hospital of Kincardine O'Neil. Its fortunes were thereafter linked to the benefice, which was erected into a prebend of Aberdeen Cathedral in 1330, and remained as such in spite of an attempt in 1501, which was apparently unsuccessful, to unite the residual fruits of the living to the Chapel Royal at Stirling.
I B Cowan 1967.
Midmar, remains of old church. Air photographs: AAS/97/02/G3/21-2 and AAS/97/02/CT.
NMRS, MS/712/29.
The inscription on Bell's gravestone reads: 'HEIR LYIS GEORG BEL DECEISIT IN BALOGY (old name of Midmar Castle, NJ70NW 13) ANO 1575'.
Air photographs: CUCAP BVI 045-6, flown 29 July 1975.
NMRS, MS/712/64.
