Old Parish Church And Burial-Ground, Marnoch

The Old Parish Church and Burial-Ground in Marnoch is a 17th century graveyard featuring a watchhouse built in 1831, located beside the River Deveron on the site of an earlier parish church. The structure has ashlar coped, rubble walls with ashlar gatepiers and hooped iron gates to the north and east, enclosing the watchhouse and various burial monuments.

The watchhouse, constructed in 1831, has an L-plan shape with a gabled roof and ashlar margins. It features a door to the east and irregularly placed windows on both the ground and first floors, all of which are currently boarded up. The roof is made of graded grey slate, pitched to the southeast, with ashlar coped skews and some urn finials.

Notable burial monuments include the Meldrum Enclosure, dated 1699, made of Moray sandstone, possibly by John Faid. This ornate Baroque free-standing aedicular monument is enclosed in coped ashlar with a balustrade and features a portrait bust of George Meldrum in a scrolled niche, an angel in the soffit, and a marble inscribed plaque below. It is flanked by Corinthian columns and an entablature with a strapwork frieze, topped with a broken pediment that includes a heraldic device and is surmounted by an urn, with angels holding trumpets on either side.

The Chalmers Memorial, dated 1707, commemorates Hugo Chalmers, Minister of Marnoch. This memorial features an ashlar plaque within an advanced pedimented structure built against the east gable end of the ruined church. It includes a pedestal with a sculpted panel, engaged Roman Doric columns, a cornice and entablature, a broken pediment with a heraldic device, and a sculpted skull in relief above the panel set into the gable.

The Innes of Murrayford Enclosure, dated 1780, is a neo-classical, free-standing memorial made of ashlar with a pedimented design, surrounded by coped ashlar walls and gatepiers. It features a central marble plaque within an advanced pilastered and pedimented panel, with smaller marble plaques on either side, all mounted on a broken pedimented gable that includes a heraldic device and flanking urns.

Lastly, the Grant Enclosure consists of a freestanding memorial within a granite ashlar coped enclosure, featuring ashlar gatepiers and wrought-iron gates. It has a pedimented granite panel set into a shaped gable adorned with urns.