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Little Dalton Church And Churchyard
Burial Ground (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Church (Medieval) - (Post Medieval)
Site Name Little Dalton Church And Churchyard
Classification Burial Ground (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Church (Medieval) - (Post Medieval)
Alternative Name(s) Dalton Parva; Little Dalton, Old Parish Church; Little Dalton Kirk; Kirkhill
Canmore ID 66164
Site Number NY07SE 11
NGR NY 08917 74685
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/66164
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Dalton
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Annandale And Eskdale
- Former County Dumfries-shire
NY07SE 11 08917 74685
(NY 0891 7468) Little Dalton Church (NR)
(Remains of)
OS 6" map (1957)
Not to be confused with Dalton, Old Parish Church (NY 1143 7397), for which see NY17SW 1.
Meikle and Little Dalton were first united by Parliament in 1609 but Little Dalton was joined to Mouswald by letter of James VI to the Privy Council, 27 May 1615. It was again united to Meikle Dalton on 28 June 1633.
H Scott 1915-61.
The outer walls of the probably early 16th c church remain. The building measures 52 1/2 ft E-W by 25 1/2 ft, with a sacristy 16 3/4 ft by 17 ft on its N side, over walls from 2 ft to 3 ft thick and 8 ft high.
RCAHMS 1920
As described by the RCAHMS. In the small graveyard (now disused) attached to the S side of the church are a number of headstones, mainly early 18th century, although one bears the date 1665. Enclosing the church and graveyard are the remains of an earth-and-stone bank, probably indicating the perimeter of the original churchyard.
Resurveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 30 October 1967
Dalton Parva (Glasgow, Annandale). A parsonage in Bagimond, the church remained unappropriated within the patronage of Carruthers of Holmains in the 16th century.
I B Cowan 1967.
The church was cleared of debris, and partially rebuilt and strengthened in 1968-9. The excavations exposed the plan of the building, revealing features including a stone bench-seat and a raised sanctuary area. The latter is unusual in that it is confined, asymmetrically, to the S side of the E wall. The doorways were cleared out and a sequence of floors determined. The building appears to date from the mid to late 15th century, and includes fragments of an earlier (?) 13th century building. The church became disused in 1633.
Finds include a fragment of medieval pottery, a Richmond copper farthing (1625-34), a possible mortuary cross and numbers of 17th - 18th century clay pipe fragments. In 1974, skeletal material was recovered from the charnel pit of the church.
J Williams 1968; 1969; A E Truckell 1974; New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845 (T H Thomson).
Little Dalton Church, Kirkhill. Roofless remains in an unwalled hraveyard overgrown with trees. The rubble-built church is perhaps of the early 16th century. T-plan with an off-centre N 'aisle'. Near the W end of the main block's N wall, a plain round-arched doorway. Three windows, all with rectangular rear-arches survive intact. One (at the W end of the S wall) is a small lancet; to its E, a round-arched light. At the E end of the N wall, a rectangular window. Roundhead arch with projecting imposts from the body into the 'aisle'.
J Gifford 1996.
Scheduled as 'Little Dalton Church... the remains of Little Dalton kirk.'
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 7 November 2007.
EXTERNAL REFERENCE: SCOTTISH RECORD OFFICE
Ruins of little Dalton Church.
Watercolour sketches by A. Clephane.
1877 GD 207/164/1-3
(Undated) information in NMRS.
Field Visit (25 August 1993)
NY07SE 11 08917 74685
The roofless ruin of this church stands in a copse on a slight eminence commanding an open aspect across the valley floor. In its present form, the church is built on the T-plan; it is probably originally of 17th-century date but has evidently been altered and partially rebuilt several times since.
The nave is entered directly through a round-headed and chamfered doorway located towards the W end of the N wall. The interior is undistinguished, but for the footings of what is probably an altar at the foot of the E wall. The W wall of the church has been almost entirely rebuilt, probably in the 19th century.
Two square-headed windows in the N wall of the nave may be original, but each, in common with the windows in the S wall, is of composite construction and may incorporate dressed stone from an earlier building on the site. The aisle is entered from the nave by a round-arched opening springing from cyma-moulded imposts; a door, wrought with a chamfered arris and checked, opens from the W wall of the aisle to the exterior. In the N wall of the aisle there is a chamfered sill for a two-light mullioned window; three windows in the S wall of the church, in their original form, seem also to have been of this type. The main E window of the church has a jamb wrought with a stout edge-roll. This moulding, which probably dates from 1600, may be in re-use.
The window-openings in the S wall of the church, in their latest form, are distinguished by their diminutive size. Each of the four is lintelled and has a flat sill internally: the westernmost window has a monolithic arch-pointed head (another head of similar form lies on the ground beside the window at the eastern end of the wall); the next window has a shallow round-arched head with composite jambs and is wrought on the ingo with a glazing-groove; the next is reduced to its sill; while that at the eastern end of the wall is square-headed and was originally glazed.
Within the burial-ground on the S side of the church, there are a number of recumbent and upright funerary monuments of 18th-century and later date, together with the detached fragments of several table tombs. Enclosing the burial-ground, there are traces of a rectangular enclosure which is defined on each side by a slight scarp.
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS), 25 August 1993.
Listed as church and burial-ground.
RCAHMS 1997.
