stirling-1963-vol-1/05_199

Transcription

No. 160 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 161
best and greatest! To the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost. 1795"). On either side of the projection there is a
wide, high, round-headed window with raised springers
and keystone, and to E. and W. of these a smaller, square-
headed window. The gables, which finish in plain tabling,
have central doors at ground level and others above them,
for access to the galleries, reached by single flights of
bottle-nosed steps which rise from the S.; there is a
square window on either side of each upper door to
light the end-galleries within. From the centre of the N.
side, the session-house, which is an addition, projects as
a low aisle; it measures 15 ft. 6 in. by 19 ft. 10 in. and
has a window to E. and to W., and also a door to E.
On either side of the session-house there is a single
square-headed window to light the area under the N.
gallery.
The internal arrangements are focused on the pulpit,
which is in the centre of the S. wall; it is backed by
Classical pilasters and a moulded and dentilated cornice,

and is reached by a stair on its E. side as it stands elevated
above the Communion table. The E., N. and W. walls
have galleries with panelled fronts and a dentilated
cornice, supported on wooden columns. The ceiling is
coved.
In the graveyard there is an octagonal watch-house of
grey ashlar dated 1828. It has a single door and window,
a moulded cornice, and a pyramidal slated roof, and is
provided with a fireplace. Only one gravestone was
found bearing a legible date earlier than 1707; this was a
slab inscribed AL ML / 16 [?6] 5.

576750 -- NS 57 NE -- 4 September 1952

[Plan Inserted]
Fig. 58. Cashel, Knockinhaglish (No. 160)

160. Cashel and Church Site, Knockinhaglish. This
enclosure (Fig. 58) is situated at a height of 320 ft. O.D.
on the highest part of a low hill three-eighths of a mile
W. of Finnich Toll. Oval on plan, it measures 220 ft. in
length from E. to W. by 175 ft. transversely within an
earthen bank with an external quarry-ditch. The bank
is spread to a width of as much as 22 ft., and in the ENE.
arc, where best preserved, it stands to a height of 9 in.
above the level of the interior and to 6 ft. above the
bottom of the ditch. At this point the ditch is 1 ft. in
depth below the level of the surrounding ground. There
are two entrances, both of which appear to be original -
one, 18 ft. in width, on the W., and the other, 24 ft. in
width on the NE. A break through both bank and ditch
on the N. is modern. The interior is featureless and the
whole structure lies within a wood. One of the channels
that drain the wood passes close to the S. side of the
enclosure and impinges upon the ditch for a length of
100 ft.
Guthrie Smith considered that this was probably the
site of a church of St. Kessog, and recorded that
"remains of buildings" could still be traced in his time.¹
Nothing survives today, but the account of the site given
in the Ordnance Survey Name Book ² says that the
authorities consulted stated that "a number of years ago
when it was trenched and planted, there were raised
several human bones and the foundation of an old
building".

487849 -- NS 48 SE ("Site of Church")
16 October 1952

161. Old Church, Killearn. The old church stands in a
large graveyard at the SW, corner of the village. It bears
the date 1734, and as no work of any earlier period can
be seen in the fabric it was presumably built then as a
completely new structure; but an older church must
certainly have preceded it, as many of the tombstones
in the graveyard are of the 17th century and a few may
perhaps be mediaeval. A new church was built on a
different site in 1826 ³. In the 19th century the shell of
the structure was reorganised as family burial-grounds.
The church (Pl. 37 A), which is oriented slightly N. of
E., is built of coursed rubble of a purplish-red sandstone,
with chamfered quoins and a cornice of grey freestone.
It measures 69 ft. 4 in. by 29 ft. 6 in. over walls 2 ft. 6 in.
thick. Traces of foundations below the turf show that an
aisle, about 12 ft. 6 in. wide, once projected 16 ft. from
the centre of the N. side. The S. side now shows, at
ground level, three round-headed doors, the E. and W.
ones having ornamental keystones, and a small, square,
built-up window on each side of the central one. The
one E. of the door has itself been formed from a door.
These and all the original opening have backset margins.
At a higher level there are four round-headed windows,
all with decorative keystones of which two take the form

1 Strathendrick, 74.
2 Drymen parish, p. 102.
3 N.S.A., viii (Stirlingshire), 66. The Ordnance Survey
Name Book, Killearn parish, p. 64, gives this date as 1836, and
states that the old church was unroofed at the same time.

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