RSL

By RSL

Sunday Worship ..

They don't meet here anymore, once a village church the remains are now quietly standing among the gravestones, it would be the pride and focus of a community but they probably grew to the extent that they needed a bigger church, leaving this one to the elements .....
... Take care ... :)

For 'Derelict Thursday' hosted by SarumStroller.

The narrative below is taken from records of this ruin ....'The Old Carnock Parish Church'
This narrow rectangular church dates to the early thirteenth century and it has undergone several phases of repair and reconstruction since this date. The first reference to it dates from the time of Bishop Malvoisin of St Andrews (1202-38), who granted it to the hospital at Loch Leven. The church is on a raised area in the south-east corner of the Carnock Cemetery and it has been suggested this was the site of an Early Christian place of worship, identified from the possible cross slab fragment which was found on the site. The cemetery is surrounded by a mid height saddle backed coped rubble wall. Its main entrance is at the east end of the north wall. Behind the iron gates, which are flanked by ashlar gatepiers, is a small flight of stone steps which give access to the graveyard which is divided into two areas, a flat lower area at the north and west sides (later cemetery extension) and the raised area in the southeast corner which is surrounded by a coped rubble retaining wall and is accessed by a flight of stone steps. It is in this area, the original section of the graveyard, that the church building and older gravestones are to be found. At the south end of the east boundary wall is an opening which would have served as the original entranceway to the older section of the graveyard. In 1886 the graveyard was extended to the north to include part of the glebe and it is this area that forms the lower section of the burial ground. Here the majority of the gravestones date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries whilst in the raised area the gravestones primarily date from the early eighteenth century to the mid nineteenth century but there are a few earlier examples. To the south of the church building, in the centre of the early graveyard, is a tablestone to Andrew Gibson, 1624, which bears a coat of arms inscription. To the north of the church building there is a large memorial to those who died in World War One.

When preservation works were being carried out in 1921 one of the skew stones was found to be carved on the underside with a representation of the Garden of Eden story and a spiral in relief. This small fragment of stone is possibly part of an Early Christian cross-slab and may therefore denote the site of an Early Christian place of worship. In 1938 the stone was recorded as being located against the north wall of the church but by 1953 it had been moved to the east wall. It has since disappeared.

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