stirling-1963-vol-1/05_175

Transcription

No. 132 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 133
mason's tools and, at the top, what seems to be a
reversing monogram. On the panel there is an assemblage
of drapery and strap-work, with a figure seated on a
crescent or scroll in the centre. Above the assemblage
there is a weathered and damaged inscription of which
little can now be deciphered. The first four lines
were probably pious verse, and these are followed by IOHN
SERVICE OBIIT -- [S] EP [TEM] BER ANNO DOM (INI)
16 [?97] / AETATIS VERO 74 / HIS SPOVS BE [?SSI] E
BVINE. In the later 19th century the date seems to have
been read as 1629, ¹ but 1697 is almost certainly correct.
A second inscription, below the assemblage, is illegible.
The separate top portion bears, on this face, an arch-
angel with a trumpet, rising from clouds, and on the
other a shield, dividing the initials IS and bearing what
seems to be a monogram. The main decoration on the
W. face is a cartouche formed by a snake with its tail
in its mouth and containing a group of three figures,
one of them haloed, and a tree. ² Illegible texts issue
from the mouths of two of them.
The following monuments, though of later date than
1707, also deserve to be mentioned as being typical of
the taste and sentiments of their day. (1) A group of
marble figures (Pl. 49) comprising two girls and an
angel, protected by a casing of glass and iron, with the
inscription MARGARET / VIRGIN MARTYR OF THE
OCEAN WAVE / WITH HER LIKE-MINDED SISTER /
AGNES. On the evidence of her tombstone in Wigtown
Churchyard, ³ Margaret Wilson was martyred by
drowning, as a Covenanter, in 1685; but the whole
episode has been the subject of controversy. The monu-
ment was erected by the late William Drummond,
Stirling, about 1870. (2) A life-sized statue of the
Reverend Ebenezer Erskine, erected in 1858 ⁴ and
bearing his name only. (3) A pyramid of grey ashlar
bearing Biblical texts and white marble decorations.
This is a memorial to all those who suffered martyrdom
in Scotland in the cause of civil and religious liberty, ⁵
and was erected by the same William Drummond
mentioned above.

791937 -- NS 79 SE ("Ch.", "Cemetery")
Various dates 1953 to 1958

132. Erskine Marykirk, St. John Street, Stirling.
The church that was built about 1740 for the Rev.
Ebenezer Erskine's seceding congregation ⁶ stood on
the SW. side of St. John Street. This church was super-
seded in 1826 by the existing structure, known as the
Erskine Marykirk, which stands rather further to the
SW., at the brink of the Castle Rock, and leaves the
site of Erskine's church as an open space in front of it.
Erskine, who died in 1754, was buried under the floor
of his church, and his tomb may now be seen in the open
space, overlooked by the elaborate Classical monument
illustrated in pl. 50 B. This monument, which was
erected in 1859 ⁷ to the design of Messrs. Peddie and
Kinnear, Edinburgh, stands about 30 ft. high on a base
15 ft. 6 in. square, and bears the name EBENEZER
ERSKINE on the lintel course on the NE. side.
The existing church measures 90 ft. externally from
NE. to SW. by 70 ft. transversely. The sides and SW.
end are of random rubble, harled, and the windows, of
which there are three superimposed pairs in each side-
wall and two, both tall, at the SW. end, have segmental
heads and backset margins. The NE. end (Pl. 40 A) is of
black whinstone rubble brought to courses, and has its
central portion advanced and finished in a pediment
supported by four flat pilasters of freestone. Similar
pilasters rise at the ends of the façade. The main entrance
is in the centre of the advanced portion and is flanked by
windows; there is another entrance to right and to left,
and five windows are placed symmetrically above. All
these openings are round-headed and have freestone
dressings. The eaves-course and parapet are also of
freestone, and there is a hipped slated roof.
The doors give entrance to a lobby, in the centre, from
which stairs rise to the gallery. Above the domed portion
of the lobby is a session-room, reached by a side-stair
off the stair to the gallery on the right. The body of the
church is curved at the NE. end, the congregation at both
levels facing towards a pulpit at the SW. end.

792936 -- NS 79 SE ("Ch.") -- 9 September 1954

133. Old Church, St. Ninians. The remains of the old
parish church of St. Ninians occupy a site which has
been in continuous ecclesiastical use since at least the
middle of the 12th century. The parish church of Eccles,
as it was at first called, is mentioned in a document of
about 1150, ⁸ while about a century later it is referred to
as the church of St. Ninian of Kirketoun, ⁹ a name which
the village retained until the 18th century. In 1746 the
church was used as a powder magazine by the Jacobite
army, and on its retreat an explosion occurred which
completely destroyed the greater part of the building.
The graveyard was retained in use, but when proposals
were under discussion for the rebuilding of the church
it was decided to erect instead a new building about
50 yds. E. of the old structure.
Of the churches that presumably succeeded each
other upon the same site over a period of six hundred
years, there survive today only part of a detached pier
with its capital, a substantial portion of a chancel, and
the handsome steeple which is virtually intact. Taken
together, however, the remaining evidence suggests that
the church of 1746 consisted of an aisled nave of 15th-

1 P.S.A.S., xxxvi (1901-2), 367.
2 Illustration, ibid.
3 Inventory of Wigtownshire, No. 523.
4 Rogers, Scottish Monuments and Tombstones, ii, 40. On
Erskine see p. 8 above.
5 Rogers. op. cit., 41.
6 T.S.N.H.A.S. (1907-8), 102. See also p. 8 above.
7 Ibid. (1908-9), 76.
8 Lawrie, Charters, No. CLXXXII.
9 Cambuskenneth, No. 110.

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