Ashkirk Parish Church

NT42SE 6 46604 21989

NT42SE 6.01 4660 2198 Centre Burial ground and burial enclosure

NT42SE 6.02 c. 4659 2197 Gate piers and gates

(NT 4662199) Church (NAT)

OS 6" map (1900)

NMRS REFERENCE

Ashkirk Church. The parish church of Ashkirk was "rebuilt" in 1790 (OSA 1792), and the aisle that projects from the W end of the S side was probably added later. It measures 50ft by 20ft 6in, the aisle being 11ft 8in deep by 22ft wide.

The exterior is harled, with red sandstone dressings at the voids; the gables show plain tabling and cavetto-moulded skewputs, and the W arc is surmounted by a square bell-cote with ogival top and ball-finial. The aisle contains the entrance, the vestry and, above, a gallery with a stair for access. East of the aisle the S side shows one large round-headed window and, towards its E end, a door giving access to another gallery-stair with a small round-headed window over it lighting the gallery. In the E end is a square-headed window lighting the gallery; in the N side another lighting the space under the gallery and a large round-headed window farther W; and in the W end another like the last. The pulpit is in the NW corner of the church, and the internal fittings appear to be Victorian with the exception of an assemblage of plain oak panelling in the centre of the N side. This is said to have been brought from Minto and may originally have been part of a laird's pew. It is 8ft 5in high to the top of the frieze and 9ft 1in wide over the bases of two Ionic half-columns which flank it. In the frieze are two sets of initials, S / GE and D / (I) C for Sir Gilbert Elliot of Headshaw, afterwards of Minto, and his second wife, Dame Jean Carre, daughter of Sir Andrew Carre of Cavers, whom he married in 1692; the letters are not carved in relief, but have been nailed on, and the I is missing. Above the frieze there is a small panel within a lugged moulding, flanked by fretted supports and topped by a pediment bearing the date 1702 incised in the tympanum.

AISLE AND TOMBSTONES. About 25ft E of the church there is the 17th-century burial-enclosure of the family of Corse-Scott of Synton, which was rebuilt in 1887. Its entrance has a quirked edge-roll wrought on the rybats; the head is semicircular and the keystone is inscribed W S 1646. No legible inscription earlier than 1707 was found in the graveyard, but E of the enclosure there are five table-stones, one of which has funerary insignia carved on the chamfered margin in 17th-century fashion.

RCAHMS 1957, visited 1953

No further observations can be added to the description in the RCAHMS Inventory. The church is roofed, in a good state of repair, and in regular ecclesiastical use. On the date of visit the church was open.

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) 9 September 1993.

RCAHMS 1957