stirling-1963-vol-1/05_189

Transcription

No. 141 -- ECCLESIASTICAL MONUMENTS -- No. 143
appearance at this very late date of a tomb of an essentially
Gothic type is very remarkable. ¹
(vii) The Monro monument. This dates from after 1746
and was "renewed" in 1848. It commemorates Sir
Robert Monro of Foulis and his brother Dr. Duncan
Monro, who were killed in the former year at the second
battle of Falkirk. The "circumstances of their death are
recorded by suitable inscriptions", ² and these are given
in full by Nimmo. ³

887800 -- NS 88 SE ("Chs.")
Various dates from 1955 to 1959

141. "Tattie Kirk", Cow Wynd, Falkirk. This church
was built for an Anti-Burgher congregation in 1806 ⁴; it
is now used as a repository and workshop, and the origin
of its present name is now unknown. It is a plain
hexagonal structure measuring 46 ft. across internally,
and the masonry is of rubble with dressed quoins and
margins. The slated roof rises to an urn-finial. There
are two ranges of windows of which the upper lights a
gallery. On the N. side of the building entrance-door-
ways give access both to the ground floor and to the
gallery, the latter being approached by an external stone
stair. On the SE. side of the church, a doorway, which is
now blocked, may originally have given access to the
pulpit. The interior is now much altered, but in the
original arrangement the pulpit probably stood against
the S. wall, while a gallery, supported on moulded
wooden columns, ran round the rest of the building.

889797 -- NS 87 NE -- 20 July 1956

142. Old Church, Polmont. The roofless shell of the
old parish church of Polmont, now included in the civil
parish of Grangemouth, stands in the graveyard and
immediately N. of its successor. It was built in 1732, ⁵
the parish having been disjoined from Falkirk in 1724.
It consists of a main block measuring 75 ft. 9 in. from W.
to E. by 30 ft. 6 in. transversely over walls 3 ft. thick,
with an aisle 29 ft. 9 in. wide projecting 18 ft. 9 in. from
the middle of the N. side and open to the interior. The
masonry is of large rubble with dressed quoins and
margins to voids, backset on the S. side only; the walls
finish in a cavetto eaves-course and the gables have plain
tabling. The apex of the aisle gable has carried a bell-
cote, now vanished. The S. side shows a square-headed
central door, now built up, 6 ft. high by 3 ft. 6 in. wide,
and over it a sundial dated 177 [?6]. On either side of
the door there is a large, high round-headed window,
subdivided by plain tracery into two pointed lights; the
lower parts of both these windows have also been built
up. Each of the three gables has a square-headed central
door measuring 6 ft. 6 in. by 4 ft. 6 in., with the raggle
of a porch above and, on the upper level, a high round-
headed window with crooks for outside shuttering. The
E. and W. gables also have square windows, measuring
4 ft. each way, on either side of the doors; but in the
aisle the corresponding windows are placed in the side
walls, with narrower ones at the upper level and slightly
further to the S. In the N. wall of the main block there
are also two similar windows at the upper level, near the
junction of the aisle. The internal arrangement has
evidently been that of a "preaching kirk", with pews and
galleries facing inwards from W., N. and E. to a pulpit
which must have been placed over the rather low S.
door.
A chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Polmont is
mentioned in 1498, ⁶ but no tradition exists to connect it
with this or any other site.
No tombstones of earlier date than 1707 were found in the graveyard.

936793 -- NS 97 NW -- 9 December 1952

143. Parish Church, Muiravonside. This church,
which was built in 1806 ⁷ to replace one which had been
described as "old" in 1791, ⁸ is of some interest as an
example of contemporary taste. Its main characteristics
are adequately shown in Pl. 40 B - e.g. the plain, barn-
like lines; the tall pointed windows, subdivided by
wooden mullions and transoms and glazed with
diamond panes; the backset window-margins and harled
or rendered walls, the rendering on the E. and W. ends
being scored to resemble ashlar; the large corbelled-out
bell-cote with rectangular uprights and ball-finials. The
internal arrangements are those of the "preaching kirk",
as the pulpit - evidently a Victorian or later replacement
- is set in the centre of the S. side and the pews and
galleries face inwards towards it from N., E. and W. The
gallery stairs, which are of stone, rise from lobbies inside
the doors in the E. and W. gables, and cut across the
upper parts of the E. and W. windows in the N. side,
which are three in number and not four as on the S. side.

BELLS. The bell, which belonged to the earlier church,
is not readily accessible and was not re-examined. A
recently published description ⁹ states, however, that it
is about 18 in. in diameter, exactly resembles the old bell
at Gargunnock (cf. No. 344), and is inscribed FOR THE
KIRK OF MUIRAVONSIDE IOHN MEIKLE ME FECIT /
EDINBURGI 1699. In the manse there is also preserved
a hand-bell, with an iron grip-handle, measuring 5 in.
in height and 6 in. in diameter at the lip; it is cracked
and perforated, but bears the inscription IOHN MEIKL
(sic) FECIT EDR 1690.

1 Cf. the Jackson memorial, of 1606, in Greyfriars Church-
yard, Edinburgh (Inventory of Edinburgh, p. 62).
2 Stat. Acct., xix (1797), 103.
3 History, 421 f. (Latin); ed. 1880, i, 237 f. (translation).
4 Local Antiquarian Notes and Queries, iv, pt. 2, 14-15,
reprinted from Falkirk Herald.
5 Stat. Acct., iii (1792), 346. N.S.A., viii (Stirlingshire), 198
gives the date as 1731.
6 R.M.S., ii (1424-1513), No. 2441, p. 519.
7 Post-Reformation Churches, 275.
8 Stat. Acct., i (1791), 201.
9 P.S.A.S., lxxxiv (1949-50), 83.

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