Publication Info
Publication Details
Introduction
There are 3 kirks and kirkyards in the parish of Lonmay. The earliest kirk sits on a bent-covered knoll overlooking the seashore in what is now the village of St. Combs. Built at some time predating the Reformation, the kirk was abandoned in 1608 when a new one was erected about 2 miles inland beside what was then the turnpike between Fraserburgh and Aberdeen. Like the St. Combs kirk, little remains of this, although the burial ground it stands in (now known as the Old Lonmay kirkyard) continued to be used into the 20th century. The Memorial Inscriptions of Lonmay (Old Kirkyard) were published by ANESFHS in 1987 (catalogue number AA175) and of St Combs in 2006 (catalogue number AA184). In 1787 a new church was erected about quarter of a mile south - the present Lonmay kirk. The field adjoining it became the New Lonmay kirkyard, and the first interment took place on June 24th 1908. Burials have continued into the 21st century and, as of 2013, the burial register listed 741 interees in its 319 lairs. Its most distinctive feature is the burial ground of the Cairness Gordon family with its 6 rough hewn stones. Some earlier members of the same family are interred in a separate enclosure at the northeast corner of the kirkyard, and the dead of two World Wars are commemorated on an obelisk in front of the kirk. The present compilation is the product of work carried out since 2004 when the late Jim McNab of St. Combs and Jim Campbell of Port Hope, Ontario, first recorded all the lairstones photographically. The initial transcription of the memorial inscriptions was made from these and later photographs by Jim Campbell, with help from Margaret Morrison of Aberdeen. Gavin Bell of ANESFHS and David Rennie of Fraserburgh provided visual checking of the stones in 2015 and surveyed the kirkyard. Gavin revised and updated the MI transcription, and prepared the plan and index. Jim Campbell
Acknowledgements
The opportunity has been taken to re-format the MI text, in the interest of greater readability, and to update some inscriptions. Such updates, together with any corrections and additional material from other sources are now made available on the ANESFHS website: https://anesfhs.org.uk/ (via the “DataBank ... Memorial Inscriptions” link). Gavin Bell MI Co-ordinator
