Stone pillared canopy that formed part of the west wall of the Errol burying ground.  Demolished by Perth & Kinross Council in 2003.

 

Until the 1830s the edifice stood outside the Errol parish church, which occupied a site near the centre of the burying ground (see below).  That church was itself a successor to the medieval church building, thought to have been demolished in the middle part of the 18th century, and which may have been situated within what is now the perimeter of the burying ground, but may have stood outwith the present day burying ground. 

 

The church was demolished around 1833-34 following the opening in 1833 of the present parish church on a site to the north of the burying ground.

 

Probably around the same time, the monument was removed to its position in the wall of the burying ground. 

 

The monument in the photograph may have sheltered a stone statue, positioned upright, but thought to have once been a  recumbent figure on the tomb of one of the Hay family, lords of Errol, in Cupar Abbey at Coupar Angus.  It is thought by art historians to date from around the middle years of the 15th century. Possibly the Hay family, still then in possession of their Errol lands, recovered the effigy of their ancestor from the Abbey (where the family had been buried for generations) before it was lost during the Reformation destruction of the building, and brought it to Errol. There is a record of at least one Hay lord being buried in Errol after the Reformation (and before they lost the lands a few decades later).  

 

The badly weathered effigy was removed to storage in the present church vestibule in 1921, on the instructions of the heritors of the parish of Errol, at the suggestion of Captain Malcolm Drummond of Megginch, one of their number, a few years prior to the transfer of responsibility for upkeep of the churchyard from the heritors to the Parish Council.

 

The effigy, described in 1921 as a "Crusader" in the minutes of the meetings of the Heritors of Errol, appears not to have been at that time not in the west wall but in the north wall, near to the Hearse House, which is still standing.  Extracts from the records of the meetings of the heritors of Errol follow (National Records of Scotland: HR124/1-8 Records of heritors of Errol parish 1795-1930).   

 

Errol 3 Feby 1921 Heritors of Errol meeting:

 

                "It was on Mr Hardie's suggestion remitted to him to arrange with Messrs Nicoll & Proudfoot to look over the old gravestones in the Churchyard with a view to ascertain as to those best worth preserving and to arrange to get an approximate estimate of the cost of renovating the lettering thereon for submission to the next meeting of heritors.

 

                Arising out of this Captain Drummond suggested that the figure of the "Crusader" presently in position in the north wall of the Churchyard near the Hearse House be removed to the outer or inner Vestibule of the Parish Church for preservation and moved accordingly and it was ultimately remitted to Rev^d Mr McLaren to fix on the position he considered most appropriate and to have the necessary work carried out, the figure to be placed in a recumbent position in the floor of the Church."

 

[signed Malcolm Drummond, Chairman]

 

 

The matter of the effigy was further discussed during 1924-1925, the Heritors having received a letter from a local farmer,  George Bell, with notes about it: 

 

7 Aug 1924 Heritors meeting

 

                "The Clerk submitted Letter [sic] from Mr George Bell, South Inchmichael, Errol, of 5^th inst with reference to the disposal of the Stone Effigy presently lying in the Vestibule of the Church. He also laid before the Meeting a Copy of Mr Bells notes on the Effigy. The Clerk was requested to reply to Mr Bell that the Heritors have appointed a Committee with powers consisting of Rev^d M^r M^cLaren, Mr Hardie & Mr Macfarlane to consider what should be done in the matter."  [...]

 

 

 

 

5 Feby 1925 Heritors meeting

 

"With reference to Mr. Bell's letter of 5th August last submitted to the last Meeting of Heritors in regard to the disposal of the stone effigy Mr Hardie reported on behalf of the Committee appointed at that Meeting that it had been decided to place the effigy underneath the stairs at the left hand side of the vestibule of the Church leading to the Gallery."

 

 

The effigy thereafter remained under the stairs in the kirk for some 60 years. Towards the end of the 1980s the effigy was gifted by the congregation of the Errol Church of Scotland to the Perth and Kinross Museum and Art Gallery.  It is in store at Perth Museum and may be viewed by the public on appointment.  Photos of it are below.

 

Errol Conservation Area was created during the mid-2000s, by which time the mural monument had been demolished, because it was thought to consitute a risk to safety, by Perth and Kinross Council.

 

The image here shown is a photocopy, formerly in the personal archives of the late Mr. Forbes Winchester, Errol, of a photograph taken in 1994 by local artist Mr. Albert Merralls, residing at the Grange, Errol.

 

From an engraving of a pen and brush drawing by Isabella Lauder, the above illustration is reproduced in the book "Errol: Its Legends, Lands and People" by Lawrence Melville (1935; reprinted 1985; p. 117).  

 

The engraving was formerly in the possession of Miss Symon, Cuba Terrace, Errol and is now (2017) in the possession of the widow of one of Miss Symon's descendants, the late Mr Forbes Winchester. The canopy sheltering the former recumbent figure is visible by the door to the side porch on the south side of the building, which also possesses an elaborate window, probably recovered from the medieval church the building had replaced.  No record in the parish registers or heritors' records has so far been found that would provide further details of the construction of the building illustrated here, which is believed to have been constructed around 1765.  A survey of the building for the heritors, by the architect of the church that replaced it as the established church in 1833, James Gillespie Graham, describes how, by the late 1820s, the building was in serious danger of falling down, with the suggestion that the weight of the roof was contributing to the displacement of the walls.

 

The lack of any reference in the kirk session minutes (which cover the period including 1765, albeit intermittently) to the alleged rebuilding of the church in 1765 is curious, as has also been noted in the survey of Perthshire churches done by St Andrews university (Oram and Fawcett). The lack of mention of what would surely have been a major project, if undertaken, may suggest that the medieval church was altered and extended, rather than rebuilt entirely, but sadly the record is silent on the matter. The main source of information for the rebuilding is the Old Statistical Account which was written several decades later and not by the then minister, Rev. Jobson, who was by then aged and apparently infirm, but by an assistant who had moved recently to the area (and who by coincidence is apparently an ancestor of the family currently residing in Megginch castle).

 

Possibly the relic, after its recovery from Coupar Abbey by the Hays, was earlier sheltered inside the medieval church, but stood upright under a newly constructed canopy outwith the Georgian church, finally to be retained in the burying ground in the west wall, once the Georgian church was demolished.  The gisant was finally removed into the Victorian church and thence to Perth Museum where it remains. 

 

Despite the importance of the "Auld Kirk" as a centre of local life, it was not the only church in Errol.  By the time the building illustrated here was allegedly constructed, the Perth associate presbytery had supported the erection in the village of a church building for worship by Errol associate congregation.  It was probably built of mudwall, and is believed to have stood in the area near what was later the garage of A.W. Scott, haulier and coal merchant, between the Errol Bowling Club green and High Street.  (N.B. Melville confuses the Relief manse - see below - and the Seceders' manse.) The envangelical Christian, seceding congregation ("non-conformist", to use anglocentric terminology), had its own minister, Rev. Watson from Brechin, replaced many years later by Rev. John Lamb, also of Brechin.   This was the church of the Symon family.  The Errol Seceders later built a replacement church, paid for by the earnings of prosperous hand loom weavers and other rural burgh trades who made up its congregation.  That church still stands, gable-end onto the bowling green, off Gas Brae (latterly Thomson joiner's workshop).  The Associate congregation was well-enough off to afford also to build a new, stone-built manse, now called The Birks, off the village's north back dykes. Many years later, the Seceders were joined, first, by a Relief chapel (later a hall owned by Mr Bruce: the Bruce Hall, now a disused joiner's workshop off Hall Wynd; the former Relief manse is present-day Eckleston, on Southbank, and named after Eckles Russell, of the family of the last Errol Relief minister,  Mr David Russell), and later by the Errol Free Church, which suffered the same fate as the others, being a joiner's workshop and coffin factory, off Church Lane (formerly Cowgate), its manse being the present-day Errol Church of Scotland manse. The Free Church was also the church of some ancestors in the present study.  No members of the (generally better off) Relief congregation have been found in the study but it should be recalled that the Errol congregation was founded at the peak of the social unrest surrounding the onset of the Napoleonic Wars, followed by a sharp decline in the fortunes of the Errol weavers and, before too long, the closure of the Relief church in the village.  The Symons carried on in the associate congregation and when it joined with the Relief Church nationally to form the United Presbyterian Church, they continued as members of the UPC, which joined the Free Church to become the United Free Church in the early 1900s.  They then moved along to the Free Kirk building until it joined the established Church of Scotland in the late 1920s and the building was vacated in the mid-1930s.