Carnock Old Parish Church, Burial Ground, Sepulchral Monument And Burial Enclosure

(1) At the east end of the church is the burial enclosure of John Row, the historian and minister of Carnock. On the back is a panel bearing the inscription, which has been renewed in places: [translated from Latin] "Here lies Master John Row, a most faithful pastor of this church. To the end of his life he was a stout champion of the truth and of the Scottish Covenant, and hated from the bottom of his heart the pseudo Episcopal hierarchy and the rites of Rome; in the apostacy of many of his fellow-ministers he firmly stood four-square. He married Grizel Ferguson, with whom he lived in closest amity for fifty-one years. This church was his charge for fifty-four years and he died 26 June 1646 at the age of seventy-eight. She too died 30 January 1659."

Above this panel is a raking pediment, enriched with scrolls and with a thistle-shaped finial. In the upper part of the tympanum are two panels bearing in Hebrew the inscription BETH OLAM, meaning "house of eternity" ("long home" in Eccles. xii, 5) or "grave."* In the lower part is a shield, accompanied by the initials M.I.R. and G.F., which is parted per pale: dexter, a double-headed eagle displayed between two shake-forks, in chief two mullets; sinister, between three boars' heads erased, on a chevron, a mullet. At the foot of the pediment is a later inscription: HERE LYES ADAM STOBIE OF WESTER LUSCAR / BORN 1620 DIED 1711 & MARGRAT GIBBON HIS SPOUSE / GRAND CHILD TO MR IOHN ROW BORN 1630 DIED 1670.

RCAHMS 1933, visited 22 June 1928

*John Row (1), father of this John (2), introduced the study of Hebrew to Scotland, and John Row (3), son of (2), published the first grammar and dictionary of Hebrew to appear in Scotland