Ecclesmagirdle Chapel

NO11NW 2 10743 16344.

For discovery of whorl in Ecclesiamagirdle churchyard, see NO11NW 57.

(NO 1074 1634) Ecclesiamagirdle Chapel (NR)

OS 6" map, (1959)

Ecclesiamagirdle or Exmagirdle Chapel is a small, late 15th or 16th century chapel of which the walls only survive. Its churchyard is still in use.

OSA 1792; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1896-7.

(NO 1074 1634) Chapel (NR) (remains of)

OS 6" map, (1970)

Ecclesmagirdle Chapel: probably late pre-Reformation. Small roofless rectangular rubble-built chapel, 25ft 7ins by 11ft 5ins internally. Square-headed SW doorway, single small, round-headed window SE with 'voussoir' lines. Single round-headed E window, square-headed W window altered. Plain square aumbry.

Churchyard wall dated DSC 1651 STIL REA DEI; small collection of 17th century gravestones of note including that of Thomas Smal, covenanting martyr 1645.

SDD List, May 1967.

The remains of the former parish church and burial-ground of Ecclesmagirdle stand on a terrace about 40m SW of Ecclesmagirdle House (NO11NW 3.00). Although a roofless shell, the walls have been maintained and survive entire. The church is a simple rectangular structure, measuring 9.62m from ENE to WSW by 5.44m transversely over walls 0.8m in thickness, and it has been built in the gently sloping burial-ground in such a way that its walls drop markedly in level from W to E. The walls are of rubble and mortar construction with ashlar quoins, but it incorporates a number of ashlar blocks evidently reused from an earlier building. There is a round-headed lancet window towards the E end of the S wall, its top formed of a single block with a narrow chamfer around the opening. The face of the block bears a series of shallow incised lines radiating from the chamfer?s edge, thus simulating the voussoirs of an arch. The window itself is a composite feature. The lancet-head is not in situ, and the sill and internally splayed E jamb belong to a rectangular-headed window of two lights, 0.82m in breadth. This has been reduced in size and converted into a lancet by the insertion of the present W jamb, and the replacement of the original lintel by the lancet head. Also in the S wall, towards the W end, there is a rectangular-headed doorway, its opening rebated internally and chamfered externally; the uppermost stone of the E jamb can be seen to be in re-use, as it bears a glazing groove on one side. In the W gable there is a rectangular-headed window, internally splayed, with a broad chamfer on the lintel and jambs. The window has been blocked for the insertion of a round-headed lancet some 0.25m in breadth, its head matching that in the S wall. Another lancet, some 0.37m in breadth but now blocked, can be seen in the E gable. A course of stonework extending the line of the E gable beyond the N wall may be the base of a former buttress.

The internal features of the building comprise scarcements on each gable, and a rectangular aumbry in the E end of the N wall. The Aumbry measures 0.45m in height by 0.39m in width and 0.46m in depth, and is rebated for a door. The scarcement on the E gable is at a height of 1.1m above the ground, below the level of the window splay, while that on the W gable is at 2.1m.

The kirkyard is enclosed by a rubble and mortar wall, some sections of which are now in a state of collapse. The gateway piers, towards the S end of the E side, incorporate a number of reused blocks of chamfered masonry. The uppermost block of the S pier, which bears the incised date 1651, is also finished with a rounded moulding along the reverse edge. The uppermost block of the N pier bears the incised letters S D C. The kirkyard contains several monuments of 17th- to 19th-century date. A number of gravemarkers are simple blocks, possibly reused masonry, either illegible, unmarked, or simply bearing initials. In the SE corner of the yard is the thruch (recumbent gravestone) stone of Thomas Small, who, according to the inscription, died for Country and Covenant on 1 September 1645. On the S side of the church stands a table-tomb, dated 1670 and 1674, which bears crossed mill-rinds, an adze, a set-square, a compass and symbols of mortality.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IF), 27 November 1996.