The Old Church of St John is a ruined church, incorporating a finely carved sacrament house and situated within a historic burial ground in Kirktown of Deskford in

Moray Moray () gd, Moireibh or ') is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It lies in the north-east of the country, with a coastline on the Moray Firth, and borders the council areas of Aberdeenshire and Highland. Between 1975 ...

, Scotland. The church, along with the remains of the Tower of Deskford which was formerly attached to it, is a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

; the burial grounds and enclosing wall, excluding the other structures, are designated as a

Category A listed building Category, plural categories, may refer to: Philosophy and general uses *Categorization, categories in cognitive science, information science and generally *Category of being *Categories (Aristotle), ''Categories'' (Aristotle) *Category (Kant) ...

History

St John's church was first mentioned in documents from 1541, which record its reconstruction, and which describe is as a

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

, probably built for the Ogilvy family. It is first described as a church in 1545, and the sacrament house was added in 1551. Situated within the parish of Fordyce, the church was owned by the canons of Aberdeen Cathedral. It remained in use until 1872, when a new parish church was built. The old kirk, now redundant, had its roof removed, its walls consolidated with cement, and it was allowed to fall into disrepair. The buildings were designated a

in 1934; the burial grounds were designated a

in 1972.

Description

The remains of the church survive as a long, narrow and roofless rectangular structure, with openings where the doorways would originally have been. It is roughly 20 metres long, and 8 metres wide, with walls around a metre in thickness. The walls survive to their full height, but the level of the ground has been raised by between 0.6 - 0.9 metres, probably around 1872 when the roof was removed. Little remains of the Tower of Deskford. Originally attached to north wall of the church, in the 1790s the tower was three stories high; all that remains today is the vaulted ground floor, and the part that abutted the church has been removed, also probably when the roof was removed. The 1551 sacrament house, described as 'gorgeous' by

Charles McKean Charles McKean FRSE FRSA FRHistS FRIBA (16 July 1946 – 29 September 2013) was a Scottish historian, author and scholar. Biography McKean was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 16 July 1946. He was educated at Fettes College, the University of Po ...

and 'particularly fine' by Richard Fawcett, is seen as the most significant surviving feature of the church. Roughly 2.5 metres high and 1 metre wide, it features fine vine-scrolling and carvings, as well as a number of inscriptions in Latin which reference the Ogilvy family (who went on to become the

Earls of Seafield Earl of Seafield is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1701 for James Ogilvy, who in 1711 succeeded his father as 4th Earl of Findlater. The earldoms of Findlater and Seafield continued to be united until 1811, when the earldom ...

), and the Gordons. The burial grounds contain a number of 17th and 18th Century memorials, including that of Walter Ogilvy, a former minister of the parish, who died in 1658. The grounds are enclosed by a coped

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionary ...

wall, and accessed from the north via a pair of simple cast iron spear-head gates, flanked by squared

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

piers.

References

{{Reflist Category A listed buildings in Moray Scheduled monuments in Scotland Church of Scotland churches in Scotland Listed churches in Scotland