Benholm Parish Church And Churchyard

Benholm Parish Church and Churchyard

This church was built in 1832, but incorporates a 15th or 16th century sacrament house and 17th century mural monuments from an earlier 13th century church that stood on the site. It is a simple, four-bay rectangular-plan church of classic design, with pedimented gables and a belfry. The exterior has been little altered and retains fine interior features, including an important wall memorial to the infant daughter of George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal.

The walls are harled with ashlar margins and quoin strips. A continuous band course runs round the building, forming the pediment. The openings are round- and segmental-arched throughout.

The west, or entrance, elevation has a gabled end with a broad, three-part panelled timber door at the centre bay, topped by a decoratively-astragalled five-pane fanlight. Above this is a similarly wide, three-part tripartite window. The east elevation mirrors the west elevation, but the gable is surmounted by a stone belfry (the bell is now housed within the church itself). The south elevation has four regularly-disposed tall windows, whilst the north elevation is blank. All windows are timber sash and case with multi-pane glazing patterns throughout; those on the south elevation are decoratively-astragalled. The roof is covered with grey slates and has ashlar-coped skews.

The interior is galleried, with a pulpit and 17th century mural monuments at the south wall. A fine stone sacrament house stands at the east wall, featuring a moulded cornice with decorative margins flanking a pointed-arch moulded opening surmounted by a thistle. The opening incorporates a high relief-carved door panel in a broad frame (possibly not original). The interior wall of the sacrament house is carved with crossbones, an hourglass and a winged angel. The interior also features decorative plasterwork cornicing and circular roof ventilators. There are boarded dadoes and fixed timber pews, originally extending the full width of the interior. The pulpit is in two tiers: the lower tier is boarded and the upper tier is panelled, giving way to a panelled and corniced sounding board. A panel-fronted gallery on square columns runs round the interior, with box pews, two laird's pews (one with fretwork screens and a table). The bell, cast in Montrose Foundry and dated 1820 with the founder's name 'David Barclay, Montrose', is housed in a small timber frame. A small memorial to John Nicoll BD, minister from 1884 to 1924, was created by H S Gamley RSA, the sculptor, in 1925.

The most significant interior features are two 17th century mural monuments. The Keith Monument is a four-stage naively-carved sandstone monument dated 1621, erected by the 5th Earl Marischal and Dame Margaret Ogilvie in memory of their daughter. The first stage, rectangular, depicts an arcade with a skeleton at the centre spearing the Earl Marischal (at left), who holds a sword and early gun and wears a hat with three bobbles (not a crown), and Dame Margaret Ogilvie (at right) with oversized arms, clasped hands and wearing a tall hat with plaited hair to the side. The second stage, also rectangular and reduced in size, bears Dame Margaret's coat of arms surmounted by a crow (reason unknown), flanked on the left by a hart (Keith family emblem), but with a 'woodwose' (wild man with ragged staff, linked with the Knights Templar at Roslin) on the right (not an Ogilvie bull). The third and fourth stages are triangular and divide into a panel with a Latin inscription. The inscription translates as: "Scarcely five years did she live. Thou wilt wonder her life was so complete. But to me she will be long lived who has lived well. Happy was her life, happier her death. Her last word was this ... That I may live with Christ makes it sweet for me to die. Thou art therefore a true Mary, thou leavest the earthly things of Martha. Live ever with Mary and enjoy God". Above the inscription is a pediment bearing the initials 'EGM', '1621' and 'DMO', surmounted by the coat of arms of the Earl Marischal bearing a portcullis, flanked by kneeling winged figures (angels?), and by a helmet and crest pointing to the right.

The Scott Monument is a large sandstone monument with a Baroque marble panel to Robert Scott of Benholm. The inscription reads: "... Robert Scott of Benholm, who departed from the banquet of mortality and was borne into the abode of immortality in the 64th year of his age. His surviving child and his widow Dame Catherine Ellis consecrated this mausoleum, such as it is, on the 23rd January, in the year of human salvation, 1690."

The graveyard encloses the church and contains a variety of 18th and 19th century stones, many with clearly carved memento mori including crossbones, skulls and winged heads. An ashlar enclosure with inset cast-iron railings to the east contains a carved slab from the 17th century Keith Monument. The boundary walls are of coped rubble with square-section, corniced and coped ashlar gatepiers supporting two-leaf ironwork gates.