Dumgree Church and burial ground

Heritage listing

Date Added 29/05/2003 Supplementary Information Updated 16/07/2019 Type Ecclesiastical: burial ground, cemetery, graveyard; church Local Authority Dumfries And Galloway Parish Kirkpatrick-Juxta NGR NY 06137 96763 Coordinates 306137, 596763 — The monument comprises the remains of Dumgree Church and its burial ground. The church is medieval in date, and visible today as turf-covered footings. The monument is situated on the SSE flank of Park Hill, overlooking the Kinnel Water, at about 225m OD. The church of Dumgree, also recorded as Dungreioch, was first documented in about 1180 when it was granted to the monks of Kelso by Walter de Carnato. The lands were confirmed by Walter, Bishop of Glasgow, and were retained by Kelso Abbey until the Reformation. Thereafter the Dumgree estate was annexed; its extent was not clearly specified until 1605 when the estate was confirmed to Charteris of Amisfield. The Johnstones were tenants in Dumgree from at least 1472 and may have been responsible for Boreland Tower, 1km to the SSE. Bordland is indicative of an earlier site, perhaps a demense farm and bailiff s residence. Dumgree Church may therefore have been a twelfth-century foundation for existing tenants on an outlying estate, given its unusual location on previously cultivated ground. The cultivation terraces survive and seem to pre-date the graveyard in which the church sits. However, the date of the graveyard boundary is not known and it is possible that the church did not have a burial ground from the outset. A rectangular platform, possibly for a building, survives to the N of the church. The surviving church building is rectangular in plan, measuring 12m E-W by 6m N-S, but it may have been rebuilt during its history. Few pre-Reformation churches survive in eastern Dumfriesshi

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.