Kinkell, St Bean's Church And Churchyard

NN91NW 8 93803 16223

For adjacent parish church (NN 9378 1612), see NN91NW 112.

(NN 9380 1621) St. Bean's Church (NR)

OS 6" map, (1959)

St. Bean's Church, Kinkell is entire but roofless. It was probably built about the end of the 16th century and repaired about 1680. Shortly afterwards the parish of Kinkell was absorbed into Trinity Gask, when the building was allowed to fall into ruin (MacGibbon and Ross 1896-7). It is more than likely that the walls are partly medieval for it corresponds very much in size with the nearby Aberuthven (NN91NE 11) (Lindsay 1950).

Kinkell was simply a parish church, granted to Inchaffray abbey, c.1200. There is nothing to support the idea that it was a cell of that abbey (Easson 1957).

D MacGibbon and T Ross 1896-7; I G Lindsay 1950; D E Easson 1957.

As described by MacGibbon & Ross.

Visited by OS (W D J) 23 May 1967.

Kinkell (Dunblane). Granted to Inchaffray by its founder Gilbert, earl of Strathearn (c. 1200), this grant was confirmed by Pope Innocent III in 1203 and to the uses of the abbey by the bishops of Dunblane before 1239, in which year a vicarage settlement was confirmed. The parsonage therafter remained with the abbey, while the vicarage appears to have been served by one of the canons.

I B Cowan 1967.

The ruin of the former parish church of Kinkell stands at the end of a low ridge between the River Earn to the N and the Pinner Burn to the S. The building is complete to its wallhead, but it is heavily shrouded in ivy, and the only features visible are a number of blocked openings in the S wall, characterised by a simple narrow chamfer. Two cross-walls divide the interior of the building into three burial enclosures, the E of which is inaccessible. The church appears to stand upon the S and E walls of an earlier building. Several eighteenth-century headstones lie to the S and SE of the building, the oldest noted bearing the date 1740.

Visited by RCAHMS (IF, JRS), 26 October 1995.