Forteviot, Old Parish Church
Church (Period Unassigned), Lade (Period Unassigned), Mill (Period Unassigned)(Possible), Bell
Site Name Forteviot, Old Parish Church
Classification Church (Period Unassigned), Lade (Period Unassigned), Mill (Period Unassigned)(Possible), Bell
Canmore ID 26542
Site Number NO01NE 12
NGR NO 050 174
NGR Description NO c. 050 174
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/26542
- Council Perth And Kinross
- Parish Forteviot
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District Perth And Kinross
- Former County Perthshire
Forteviot 6, Perthshire, carved fragment
Measurements:
Stone type:
Place of discovery: NO c 0504 1739
Present location: lost.
Evidence for discovery: recorded in the late nineteenth century as having been built into the wall of one of the outhouses belonging to the mill on the east side of the Water of May at Forteviot and later re-used again in a retaining wall on the east side of the Water.
Present condition:
Description
No description has been recorded of this stone.
Date range:
Primary references: ECMS pt 3, 324; Hall 2011, 146.
Desk-based information compiled by A Ritchie 2018
NO01NE 12 c. 050 174
(Name NO 05081744) Church (NR) site of
OS 6" map, (1959)
For present parish church (NO 0514 1446), see NO01NE 74.
The church at Forteviot is reputed to have been founded c. AD 761.
A stone arch carved with a cross and the Agnus Dei was found before 1831 in the bed of the River May immediately below the Holy Hill (NO 050 175 - see NO01NW 16)
J Stuart 1856; J Anderson 1892.
No trace of the old church at Forteviot remains and its exact site could not be established. It may have been in existence until early 18th century.
The arch stone is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) but it is not certain whether it came from the palace at Forteviot (NO01NW 16) or the old church.
Within the modern Forteviot church (NO01NE 74) is a bronze hand bell considered to be 10th century and a relic of the old church (Meldrum 1926).
N Meldrum 1926; Visited by OS (E G C) 23 November 1965.
Report on an evaluation of the recent evolution of the course of the Water of May.
Dr T.C. Welsh, 2007
Forteviot (St Andrews, Gowrie) was granted to Cambuskenneth by William the Lion 1171x78; the church does not appear in subsequent confirmations. The grant was apparently ineffective, and the church appears as a parsonage in Bagimond/ In 1473/4 Pope Sixtus IV united the church to the archepiscopal mensa of St Andrews, but in spite of a supplication of 1484 and a fresh appropriation in 1487 by Pope Innocent VIII, this likewise appears to have been ineffective. Finally, in 1495, the then parson consented to the erection of the parsonage into a prebend of St Salvator's College, while the existing vicarage pensionary was erected into a vicarage perpetual. This annexation made by Archbishop William Scheves was effected and continued at the Reformation.
I B Cowan 1967.
NO 0500 1739 Mill (Possible) On an artificial channel, along NE edge, building foundation 10 x 6m, and in line 5.5 x 5.5 and other remains. In this location near Forteviot church it may be significant. It is inside the former meander which, crossing the present course 70 metres above the bridge, caused the erosion at at Haly Hill (though now on Hennhill side of river).
Dr T C Welsh, 2007.
Field Visit
NO 0504 1739 Foundations of an old mill on a channel across a former meander. The lade extends 115m NW from the present (post-1866) bank to the pre-1866 meander, 8m wide, and was probably fed from a pre-1769 meander. The mill remains, two dry stone foundations and a rectangular platform, are 30m NW of present river on N side of the channel, the main structure 12 x 6m projecting into the lade. There are other earthworks of unclear origin in its vicinity, and a channel perpendicular NE below the mill.
A plan deposited with RCAHMS (Acc No 2007/218).
