Findo Gask Parish Church And Churchyard

NO02SW 16 00237 20164

For Findo Gask Manse (NO 0009 2005), see NO02SW 15.

Findo Gask Parish Church [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1987.

Gask, or Findo-Gask. The church of this parish was dedicated to St Findoch. It belonged to the Abbey of Inchaffray.

H Scott 1915-61.

Findogask (Dunblane). Also known as Gask or Negask, the church was granted (1210x18) by Seher de Quincy, Earl of Winton, to the Hospital of St James and St John at Brackley in Northamptonshire. The parsonage was still retained by the hospital in 1266, in which year its revenues were leased to the bishop of Dunblane, who had to provide for a vicar and also pay a pension to Inchaffray, the abbey of which in 1238 had been in dispute with the hospital over teinds of this church. This arrangement was possibly maintained until the early 14th century, but the church was certainly lost to the hospital before 1358, by which year the vicarage had been annexed to the prebend of the archdeacon of Dunblane, as it continued at the Reformation when the parsonage is found as a mensal church of the bishops, who had presumably retained it following upon its lease to them, the cure then, as always, being a vicarage pensionary.

I B Cowan 1967.

1. Parish Church of Findo-Gask. Dated 1800 on swagged panel on S wall. Simple harled rectangle with bird cage bellcote, 2 round arched windows S wall, square-headed N wall. W porch and session-house added 1863; bow ended stair at E gable to gallery. Interior: original gallery front at E end, otherwise much altered and refurnished. Ceiling 1967. Ecclesiastical building in use as such.

2. Churchyard of Findo Gask. Rubble walled enclosure; stones from 1880.

SDD/HBM List, 1968.

The parish church of Findo Gask occupies a level site on the crest of the Gask Ridge 250m NNW of Findo Gask School (NO01NW 83), and is said to succeed an older (chapel) site in the grounds of Gask House (NN91NE 41.03). The church is a simple rectangular building, with a porch and session house attached to the W gable, and an apsidal E end housing a stair to the gallery. A sandstone panel near the head of the S wall bears the date 1800.

The large, rectangular, graveyard is only sparsely occupied by burials; the oldest stone noted, which is built into the dyke W of the church, bears the date 1833 and an assemblage of agricultural tools, namely a plough, harrow, sickle, scythe, rake, spade and fork.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, IF), 24 October 1995.

SDD/HBM List.