Balmaclellan Churchyard is a Grade B listed building in the Dumfries and Galloway local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 31 August 2009.
Balmaclellan Churchyard
- WRENN ID
- hidden-cloister-thunder
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- Dumfries and Galloway
- Constituency
- Dumfries and Galloway MP: John Cooper (Con)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 31 August 2009
- OS grid reference
- NX 651 791
- Coordinates
- 55.08801, -4.11418
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
Balmaclellan Church is a church that began construction in 1753, with later additions made by William McCandlish in 1833 and in 1886. It features a five-bay, T-plan layout and is situated on a small rise within its churchyard. The exterior is finished with white painted harl, accented by red sandstone skews and a bellcote. The church has corbelled eaves and narrow, round-arched window openings. The south elevation includes a central, slightly advanced gable with a lower, projecting entrance porch. At the west gable apex, there is a square-plan bellcote with round-arched openings on the sides and a steep, pyramidal stone roof. Crosses are positioned at the other gable apices.
The windows predominantly feature plate glass fixed pane glazing with coloured glass margins, and the roof is covered with graded grey slates. The skews are raised with skewputts.
Inside, the church has a white painted interior that showcases a fine open-timber roof, featuring an elaborate crossing formation with a hanging pendant. The interior also includes dado-height timber boarding, timber pews, a Communion table, and a pulpit. A stained glass window by Gordon Webster, created in 1928, depicts Christ as Lord of All. The church has six-panelled timber doors.
The churchyard surrounds the church and contains a variety of gravestones from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, including a rare civic Crimean War Memorial from around 1856. Some 18th-century stones feature memento mori carvings, including angel heads, skulls, and plants. There are several table stones, including an 18th-century memorial to Covenanter Robert Grierson, as well as additional 18th and 19th-century carved stones, obelisks, and Celtic crosses. A statue of Old Mortality, created by John Corrie in 1840, is set within the boundary walls.
The Crimean War Memorial is a square-plan structure made of red sandstone, featuring a base course, cornice, and gabled capping stone. Each face of the memorial has an inscription commemorating five local men, and the capstone is adorned with carvings of a cannon, rifle, crossed swords, and cannon balls.
Coped rubble walls surround the churchyard.
Local climate
Balmaclellan Churchyard sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,430 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 98% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 90% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 49 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 91% of listed buildings. Of these, 27 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.2°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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