Christ's Kirk, Kennethmont

Heritage listing

Date Added 13/12/2006 Type Ecclesiastical: burial ground, cemetery, graveyard; church Local Authority Aberdeenshire Parish Kennethmont NGR NJ 60550 26812 Coordinates 360550, 826812 — The monument consists of the partly exposed, but mainly grass-covered, foundations and collapsed rubble-built lower walls of the parish church of Rathmuriel. The first certain reference to the church is at a date between 1191 and 1195, when it was granted to Lindores Abbey by the founder of that abbey, David, earl of Huntingdon; papal confirmation of this grant was issued in 1195, and a vicarage was established in 1257. By the Reformation (in 1560) the church had apparently become a dependent chapel within the parish of Kennethmont (which was also appropriated to Lindores). In the later Middle Ages it bore the dedication of Christ's Kirk, but is traditionally said also to have had a dedication to the shadowy St Muriel. The church was united with Kennethmont in about 1630, and probably fell out of use for worship soon afterwards, though both church and churchyard continued in use as a burial place. The church appears to have had maximum dimensions of 22.5 m from E to W by 7.3 m from N to S; there is slight evidence of what may have been a cross-wall dividing chancel from nave. Most of the masonry of the walls has been robbed, and is assumed to have been re-used in building adjacent farm structures. The church was slightly to the south of the centre of a roughly rectangular churchyard, defined by collapsed dry-stone-built walls. One gravestone with the date 1767 remains to the south of the church, and it is likely there are others concealed within the vegetation. The church and churchyard are now largely lost to sight within a copse of pine and beech trees and saplings. The area to be schedul

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.