St Mary's Church, Kirkhill

St Mary's Church, Kirkhill

The principal surviving element of the former Wardlaw Parish Church is a rectangular burial aisle constructed in 1634, which may incorporate an earlier core, along with a belfry dated 1722. The building is harled rubble with ashlar dressings.

The three-bay south elevation features the 1722 belfry at its east apex. A square-headed door with moulded jambs provides access, flanked by two long round-headed windows with similarly moulded jambs. These windows retain panelled wooden shutters fitted with long blacksmith hinges that extend across the shutters as locking bars.

A forestair at the east gable leads to a mural wheel stair serving the bellcote tower. The tower base is square in plan with square-headed windows in each face except the west, and small decorative stumpy bartizans at each angle. These bartizans are corbelled out with decorative moulded ashlar conical caps and diminutive apex ball finials. The circular belfry stage immediately below the eaves cornice contains four square-headed windows, offset to the windows below. The conical roof is pierced by four diminutive dated lucarnes and crowned with a double ball finial and copper weathercock. Strapwork buckle margins run at the south-east and north-east angles; moulded eaves cornices appear on the north and south; and the roof is finished with flat skews terminating in swept skewputts and slate tiling.

Internally, a shallow raised dais at the east end features a carved ashlar balustrade incorporating the Lovat coat of arms, with a Corinthian columned and pedimented mural memorial plaque and further plaques in moulded surrounds on either side. Plaques in the north and south walls record burial vaults of the Frasers of Reelig and Belladrum respectively. A shallow mural recess in the north wall houses two early carved fragments. A trapdoor entrance to the Lovat (Fraser of Beaufort) burial vault lies immediately in front of the balustrade; steps descend to the vault containing various 18th and early 19th-century lead coffins. The stone tiled floor is in poor condition.

The burial ground extends westward from the burial aisle, its former line defined by footings and re-sited jambs of an entrance door leading to one of the burial enclosures. The burial ground itself is enclosed by a roughly coped rubble wall, heightened in part at the south. A round-headed entrance with moulded jambs is set under a corniced blocking course, with a spearhead cast-iron pedestrian gate.

The site represents Maryhill or Kirkhill, location of the former Wardlaw Parish Church. The Kirkhill parish comprises the united parishes of Wardlaw and Farnua. The Lovat burial aisle served the Lovats of Beaufort until the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary's Eskadale was built in 1826, after which the family maintained a burial ground there. A pedimented mural memorial to Thomas Lord Fraser of Lovat was erected by his son Simon. Three Fraser ministers of Kirkhill are buried close together: Reverend Alexander Fraser (1749–1802), Reverend Donald (1783–1836), and Reverend Alexander (died 1883, who "carved out" at the Disruption). These three—grandfather, father, and son—represent successive generations of the family's ministry.