stirling-1963-vol-1/05_200

Transcription

No. 162 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 163
of human masks. Above the central door there is a tablet
bearing the date 1734 in relief. The W. gable contains at
the upper level a round-headed window through the
lower part of which a doorway has been contrived -
evidently to give access from a vanished outside stair into
a gallery. The apex of the gable carries a base for a small
bell-cote. The E. gable shows at ground level a very
low, built-up door, the lintel of which must have been
dropped during alterations to the gable, and above it a
tall, window-like opening with an arched head, which
has certainly been inserted. Both gables have plain
tabling and rolled skewputs. In the N. wall, both to E.
and to W. of the position of the vanished aisle, there is a
built-up square-headed window at the lower level and a
round-headed window at the upper; these latter have
ornamental keystones, and the W. one a threshold as if,
like the opening in the W. gable, it had given access to a
gallery from an outside stair. At the position of the aisle,
the wall is interrupted for a distance of 12 ft. 7 in. and
the gap is filled by a wall of later construction built 9 in.
back from the line of the main wall-face. This inserted
wall rises to a gable with plain tabling and a ball at its
apex. Its masonry differs from that of the rest of the
church, and it contains a window and a blocked door,
both of which have red sandstone rybats and arched
heads showing narrower backset margins than the
original openings, and no chamfers. The finished side of
this wall is turned towards the interior of the church
and the window also looks inwards, while on the N. side
the door is only visible in its lowest part and has clearly
never been used. The whole gable must evidently have
been built, after the church had lost its roof and become
partly ruinous, as an ornament intended to be seen from
within; this is most likely to have been done in the middle
of the 19th century, no doubt when the family burial-
grounds were organised in the interior.

TOMBSTONES. In the graveyard there are five tomb-
stones bearing legible dates earlier than 1707, and many
of the illegible ones no doubt belong to the same period.
The five in question bear dates and initials as follows:
(i) 1669 / IB IB; (ii) 1668 / W [? ?] R / R / M; (iii) 1665 /
TE; (iv) 1 [?6] 87 / IE ML; (v) 1688 / M / JC, recut in
the 19th century when this stone was re-used. Another
which is also probably of the 17th century commemor-
ates IR / MM. At least three slabs, now showing no
inscription, were noted which taper markedly from head
to foot; this suggest a mediaeval date.

522858 -- NS 58 NW -- 3 October 1952

162. Parish Church and Graveyard, Drymen. The
parish church, which was built in 1771 ¹ has been much
altered and is now of no particular interest. In the grave-
yard three stones were noted of earlier date than 1707,
all recumbent slabs. The first, which is notable for a
marked taper (1 ft. 6 in. to 11 1/2 in.) unusual in post-
Reformation grave-slabs, is inscribed in relief 1618 /
IB / A E T, the rest of the inscription being illegible. The
second bears the initials AN / MN, in relief and very
large, on a sunk panel, with the date 1692 and the
initials MS incised above and below respectively. The
incised items seem to be later than the initials in relief.
The third bears on the face 1682 / IB AD, and a
marginal inscription shows that the persons com-
memorated were IAMES BACHA [?P] of EASTER
BALFUNING and his wife and children.

473880 -- NS 48 NE -- 4 September 1952

163. Church, Inchcailleach. The parish of Buchanan
was formerly names Inchcailleach, after the island in
Loch Lomond on which the church stood. ² The island
lies some 200 yds. out from the West Pier, Balmaha on
the NE. side of the Loch. The Statistical Account of
Scotland notes that Incailleach means "the island of
the old women", and that the place was so called because
a community of nuns once existed there; but no such
community is, in fact, on record, and no remains of any
structure which might have been a nunnery are known.
On the other hand, "nun" (i.e. "cowled woman") is an
early meaning of cailleach, and the form of the place-
name, with its suggestion of the plural number, would
agree well enough with this tradition; while if the refer-
ence had been to Saint Kentigerna, the Irish saint who
settled here as a recluse and died in 733, ³ a form more
reminiscent of the singular (e.g. Inch na Cailliche) might
perhaps have been expected. ⁴
The church was abandoned in 1621, its place being
taken by a chapel-of-ease near Buchanan Old House
(No. 329) ⁵. Its remains lie, within a graveyard, on rising
ground some 230 yds. SW. of the landing-place at the
NE. end of the island, and now consist merely of grassy
foundation-banks heavily overgrown with brambles,
bushes and small trees. The site was excavated in 1903, ⁶
by the Reverend W. H. MacLeod, who found that the
church measured internally 64 ft. 6 in. by 19 ft. 4 in.,
the wall-thickness being 3 ft. 3 in.; the length as he gave
it was verified by the Commission's officers who found
the northern corners still exposed. He further located a
chancel wall 23 ft. 6 in. from the inside of the E. end,
with traces of what was probably a chancel arch 3 ft. 6 in.
wide; also a door, 2 ft. 10 in. wide, at the W. end of the
S. wall and a priest's door 2 ft. 6 in. wide set with its E.

1 N.S.A., viii (Stirlingshire), 111.
2 Stat. Acct., ix (1793), 12 The spelling here, followed by
the O.S. maps, is Inchcailloch, and the Aberdeen Breviary
(pars. hyem., January, fol. xxv) has Inchcailzeoch. Colgan,
however (Acta SS. Hiberniae, Irish MSS. Commission facsimile
ed., p. 22), gives "Infe-roihle", probably a misprint for "Inse-
roihle", and quotes from Camerarius "Inchelroche".
3 Annals of Ulster, s.a. 734, in Skene, Chronicles of the Picts
and Scots, p. 356.
4 The Commissioners are indebted to Professor K. H.
Jackson, M.A., Litt.D., F.B.A., for elucidating this point.
5 Stat. Acct., ix (1793), 12.

[Hand written] Reg Privy Council (2nd Series) VIII
p475

6 T.G.A.S., new series, iv, 75 ff

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