Introduction

As its name suggests, the Old Ground is the oldest section of Kirkton Cemetery, and is where the original Church of Philorth once stood. Dedicated to St. Medan in the 12th or 13th century, the church was abandoned in 1574 and no surface remains of it now exist. The oldest structure in the Ground, a low roofed, red brick vault with rubble stone end walls (now the mausoleum of the Frasers of Park), has been reported as containing the walls of the church. During construction of the 1910 Addition to the cemetery, however, substantial foundations of what were clearly the old church walls were uncovered, partly within and partly without the enclosing west wall of the original graveyard – a much larger structure. The brick vault is probably a later addition. The Old Ground is surrounded by a masonry wall with a roll-moulded iron gate. Nineteenth century maps show that the NW corner of the ground was originally bevelled, although in the late 1890s this part was filled in and the enclosing wall made approximately rectangular. No burials, however, have been recorded in the filled-in area. There are approximately 450 gravestones, dating mainly from the 17th to 19th centuries. Interments, however, continued well into the 20th century, the last being in 1990. Written lair records exist since the mid-1860s: register and lair books are available for study at the Fraserburgh Registrar Office, 14 Saltoun Square. Jim Campbell Port Hope, Ontario June 2013 In 1900, J. M. D. Smith had an article published in the “Fraserburgh Herald” giving the inscriptions of stones in the Vault, and in 1910, in “Aberdeenshire Epitaphs and Inscriptions” John A. Henderson gave some 30-odd inscriptions of stones in the Old Ground. Where these two sources recorded stones which are now lost (or no longer readable or accessible) they have been incorporated into the present publication. Following a previous survey, the Kirkton was the destination (in 2007) of the annual ANESFHS graveyard outing, but the resulting draft version did not make it into print. More recently, the Kirkton attracted the attentions of two very active members of the Society: Jim Campbell (of Port Hope, Ontario) who has been working his way up the Buchan coast, recording MIs and transcribing lair records, and David Rennie (a native “Brocher”) who has been busy recording the MIs of the more recent parts of the Kirkton Cemetery. They combined forces to carry out a complete re-reading of the stones in the Old Ground, and I was able to help with a new survey and plan. Thanks go also to Suzanne LeBlanc for her painstaking work in proofing and indexing. Gavin Bell August 2014