Cluny, Old Churchyard, St Machar's Church

NJ61SE 5.02 6847 1255

For present parish church (NJ 6849 1243), see NJ61SE 9.

(NJ 6847 1256) Mausoleum (On Site of the Old Parish Church) (NAT)

OS 6" map, (1959)

The kirk of Clony or Cleyn belonged to the Cathedral of Aberdeen. It is first mentioned in the Taxation of 1275 and its first recorded reader, John Strachan, is mentioned in 1574. About 1732 it was described as 'a cross church' with two aisles. It was ruinous about 1789 and was demolished. Scott notes that the church was dedicated to St Machar.

A Jervise 1875-9; H Scott et al 1915-61.

Cluny (Aberdeen, Mar). A pendicle of the parsonage of Kincardine O'Neil, the church appears to have passed to the hospital of that name by the grant of Alan Durward in 1233-4 of the church of Kyncardim in Marr with its pertinents. Cluny was certainly only a vicarage in 1274, while the hospital master was taxed 'pro omnibus eclesiis'.

In 1330 the hospital, with its annexed chapels, was erected, with the consent of Duncan, Earl of Fife, into a prebend of Aberdeen Cathedral by Bishop Alexander of Kyninmund. The patronage of the church of Cluny passed to William, Earl of Sutherland and his wife in 1346, although in the 16th century patronage was undoubtedly exercised by the prebendary with consent of the crown, who held the patronage of Kincardine O'Neil.

Both parsonage and vicarage teinds pertained to the prebend of Kincardine at the Reformation, the charge apparently being served by a curate, although a vicarage appears to have existed in 1516/17.

The residual fruits of the prebend with its four annexed chapels were appropriated in 1501 to the Chapel Royal, Stirling, provision being made for vicar pensioners, but it is doubtful whether this was effective, the prebend itself remaining with a canon of the cathedral.

I B Cowan 1967.

No further information.

Visited by OS (RL) 7 February 1968.