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Lochmaben, St Mary Magdalene's Church And Churchyard

Burial Ground (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Church (12th Century), Grave Slab (13th Century) - (14th Century), Long Cist (Early Medieval)

Site Name Lochmaben, St Mary Magdalene's Church And Churchyard

Classification Burial Ground (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Church (12th Century), Grave Slab (13th Century) - (14th Century), Long Cist (Early Medieval)

Alternative Name(s) Old Parish Church; Church Of Saint Mary Magdalene; Jardine Memorial; Lochmaben Church Yard

Canmore ID 66309

Site Number NY08SE 5

NGR NY 08119 82505

NGR Description Centred on NY 08119 82505

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/66309

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

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Administrative Areas

  • Council Dumfries And Galloway
  • Parish Lochmaben
  • Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
  • Former District Annandale And Eskdale
  • Former County Dumfries-shire

Archaeology Notes

NY08SE 5 08119 82505.

(NY 0812 8249) Church (NR) (Site of)

OS 6" map (1957)

For (19th-century) Lochmaben, Saint Magdalene's Church (NY 0836 8227), see NY08SE 54.

The church of St Mary Magdalene, granted to the monks of Gisburn in the 12th century by Robert de Brus, stood on the shores of Kirk Loch. It is said to have been burned by the Johnstones in 1593. Added to and altered over the centuries, it served the district till 1818 when it was pulled down.

NSA 1845; F H Groome 1903; C A R Radford 1954; TSA 1962,

No remains. The correct name is 'The Church of St Mary Magdalene'.

Visited by OS (RD) 20 June 1966

Excavations were carried out in Lochmaben Church Yard in 1969 to verify the position of the Old Parish Church. A grave slab of probable late 13th or early 14th century date was found during the cleaning of a small portion of the footings later identified as the eastern end of the north wall. The top of the slab had been broken in order to fit it into the width of the wall. Further excavation of the same length of wall revealed a rough slabbed long cist at a depth of 4 ft. This measured 122 cm by 41 cm and 23 cm deep and contained a skeleton. A small piece of 13th century pottery was found in the soil that filled the cist.

After photographing the skeleton and cist, the slabs were replaced and the excavation filled in. Several pieces of 14th century pottery were also found during the excavation.

J B Wilson 1972.

Activities

Publication Account (1980)

Little is known of the parish church of Lochmaben which received an early mention in 1202 when it was gifted to Guisborough in Yorkshire. It maintained its connection with Guisborough until after the Wars of Independence and was at the Reformation a prebend of Lincluden (Wilson, 1968, 5). The original church – dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene - stood in the old churchyard behind High Street along the shore of Kirk Loch. It was a Gothic edifice which was. taken down in 1818 and replaced by Lochmaben Church which stands at the southern end of High Street. Although the church was burned during the 1593 feud between the Maxwells and Johnstons and many may denounce this as sacrilege, one local writer of the last century argued passionately that the deliberate demolition of the Gothic edifice in 1818 was a still greater profanation of things sacred' (Graham, 1865, 123). Two pre-Reformation items which escaped the demolisher's gunpowder in 1818 are church bells which are still in use today.

Information from ‘Historic Lochmaben: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1980).

Field Visit (27 September 1993)

NY08SE 5 0812 8249.

The medieval parish church of Lochmaben occupied the highest point within the present burial-ground to the E of the Kirk Loch, close to a holy well (NY08SE 6) and in the shadow of the Bruce castle (NY08SE 7). The juxtaposition of church and castle suggests that the church was a proprietorial foundation of the Bruce's.

The site of the church is evident as two contiguous rectangular depressions about 0.4m in depth, near the centre of the burial-ground; the western depression measures 12.8m from E to W by 8.8m transversely, the eastern 18m by 9m. This suggests that the church was probably a two-cell structure measuring about 27m in length overall, comparable to that at Buittle (NX85NW 1).

The earliest gravestone impinging on the church site is dated 1823. The E end of the church now lies beneath the obelisk raised in memory of William Jardine.

Various dressed stones are incorporated in the walls of the burial-ground and neighbouring manse garden, and some may be derived from the medieval church. A square block (0.20m by 0.19m and 0.30m thick), bearing the incised outline of what seems to be a pair of tweezers, now lying beneath a table-tomb, could be a fragment from a medieval graveslab. There are a number of 18th-century gravestones within the burial-ground.

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS), 27 September 1993.

Listed as church, burial-ground, long cist and medieval graveslab.

RCAHMS 1997.

Note (14 March 2024)

A burial ground is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (1861).

Information from HES (D Watson) 14 March 2024

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