Back to the Kirk

While out for my walk yesterday to the Parish Kirk, I noticed an unusual stone, so once I discovered some ideas as to what it was, it meant that I needed to pop back up to the Kirk again (not an effort, only 5 minutes away from my parent's house), this morning to blip it, so here it is and here is some information on the Mysterious stone:

This mysterious stone leans against the east wall of the church. It was discovered during the building works of 1932. The stone depicts a cross within a circle and beside that, a sword. Glasgow archaeologist Ludovic Mann (1869-1955) thought the stone was a Templar memorial and was probably as old as the 13th century.

The Knights Templars full name was the 'Poor fellow soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon' and they were formed in the aftermath of the 1st crusade of 1096. Originally, the Templars were a military religious order whose purpose was to ensure the safety of the large numbers of European pilgrims who travelled to Jerusalem after its conquest. As the order grew in size and power it became very wealthy and non-combatant sections of the order began to institute many financial techniques which were the foundations of modern banking. They acquired vast amounts of land in Britain and locally were said to own land at Capelrig, Newton, Southfield, Broom, Blackhouse, Shawhill and Burnhouse.

In the early 1300s the order fell from favour as the French king Philip IV, eager to get his hands on the wealth built up by the Templars, persecuted, tortured and executed its members. Finally, in 1312 he persuaded Pope Clement V to disband the order. Much of the land in Scotland owned by the Templars was given to another religious military order the Knights Hospitiller or 'Order of the Knights of St. John' who had been introduced to the country by David I.

Could the stone in Mearns Kirkyard have marked the final resting place of a member of one or other of these orders?