A Corpus of Scottish Medieval
Parish Churches

Historical outline

Dedication: unknown

The first surviving reference to the church of Foulden is in the rolls of the papal tax-collector in Scotland in 1274-5.  Recorded as ‘Foulden’, ‘Fueldon’ and ‘Fenldeim’, its taxation was in the first instance recorded in a single entry paid by a procurator on behalf of the rectors of Foulden and Liston.(1)  Patronage of the church appears to have lain with the Ramsays of Dalhousie, who were also lords of the barony of Foulden.(2)  Confirmation of their possession of the right of patronage, however, is not recorded until 1528, when a Great Seal confirmation of the lands and rights of George Ramsay of Dalhousie included explicit reference to his rights in the church of Foulden.(3)  It remained unappropriated at the Reformation, when the parsonage was held by one Alexander Ramsay and his income, expressed in produce, came to 48 bolls of oats, 20 bolls of bere, 8 bolls of wheat and rye, and 4 bolls of peas and beans.(4)

Notes

1. A I Dunlop (ed), ‘Bagimond’s Roll: Statement of the Tenths of the Kingdom of Scotland’, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, vi (1939), 33, 58, 59.

2. Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, ii, 1424-1513, ed J B Paul (Edinburgh, 1882), no.602.

3. Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, iii, 1513-1546, eds J B Paul and J M Thomson (Edinburgh, 1883), no.590.

4. J Kirk (ed), The Books of Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices (Oxford, 1995), 193, 196.

Summary of relevant documentation

Medieval

Synopsis of Cowan’s Parishes:

The parsonage, listed in Bagimond’s Roll, is unappropriated at the Reformation. Patronage is with the Ramseys of Dalhousie from 13th century to Reformation (see Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, ii, no. 602, iii, 590, v, 1712).(1)

1556 (9 April) Parish church is one of 22 from the Merse specifically mentioned in two letters [the 1555 letter does not have a specific date, McRoberts suggests August] from John Hamilton, archbishop of St Andrews (1547-1571) to the Dean of Christianity of the Merse. Hamilton states that ‘a great many of the parish churches are - their choirs as well as naves - wholly thrown down and as it were levelled to the ground; others were partly ruinous or threatening collapse in respect of their walls and roofs; they were without glazed windows and without a baptismal font and had no vestments for the high altars and no missals or manuals…. The fault and shortcomings belong to the parishioners as well as to the parsons’. The dean was instructed to investigate the fruits, garbal teinds and other rights of the said churches.(2)

Post-medieval

Books of assumption of thirds of benefices and Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices: The Parish church parsonage of Foulden held by Alexander Ramsay, rental in produce.(3)

Statistical Account of Scotland (Rev Dr David Young, 1791): ‘the parish church was rebuilt in 1785’.(4)

New Statistical Account of Scotland (Rev Alexander Chartison, 1834): ‘The parish church was built in 1786. [note the different wording to OSA] It is situated within the pleasure grounds of Foulden House’.(5)

[Neither account refers to the survival of church buildings from prior to 1785/86]

Architecture of Scottish Post-Reformation Churches: (George Hay): 1786; small addition.(6)

Notes

1. Cowan, The parishes of medieval Scotland, 70.

2. NRS Miscellaneous Ecclesiastical Records, CH8/16. Noted in Donaldson, Scottish Reformation, p. 23 and McRoberts, ‘Material destruction caused by the Scottish Reformation’, 427.

3. Kirk, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, 193 & 196.

4. Statistical Account of Scotland, (1791), xi, 185.

5. New Statistical Account of Scotland, (1834), ii, 264.

6. Hay, The Architecture of Scottish Post-Reformation Churches, 252.

Bibliography

NRS Miscellaneous Ecclesiastical Records, CH8/16.

Cowan, I.B., 1967, The parishes of medieval Scotland, (Scottish Record Society), Edinburgh.

Donaldson, G., 1960, The Scottish Reformation, Cambridge.

Hay, G., 1957, The Architecture of Scottish Post-Reformation Churches, 1560-1843, Oxford.

Kirk, J., 1995, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, (British Academy) Oxford.

McRoberts, D., 1962., ‘Material destruction caused by the Scottish Reformation’, in D. McRoberts, Essays on the Scottish Reformation, 1513-1625, Glasgow.

New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1834-45, Edinburgh and London.

Statistical Account of Scotland, 1791-9, ed. J. Sinclair, Edinburgh.

Architectural description

There was a church at Foulden from at least the late thirteenth century, its cure being a free parsonage in the patronage of the Ramsay of Dalhousie family.(1) The church was one of 22 in the Merse that were said to be in a poor condition in a letter issued on 9 April 1556 by Archbishop John Hamilton, presumably at least partly in consequence of the border warfare with England.(2)

The parish has had a complex post-Reformation history. Between 1616 and 1627 it was united with Lamberton, and since 1927 it has been united with Mordington.(3)

Much of the red sandstone rubble fabric of the church as now seen dates from a rebuilding of 1786.(4) It is oriented, and it is said that it was rebuilt on the old foundations,(5) though if that is the case it is likely to have been truncated.

In the course of the operations of 1786 gabletted buttresses were added on each flank and Y-traceried windows were inserted. The east gable was embellished with an echelon arrangement of three stepped triplets of crenellations with small quatrefoil openings flanking the main windows. This gable was probably intended as an eye-catcher in the view from Foulden House.

More historically ‘correct’ detailing was later introduced when a two-light window was cut through the west wall and a bellcote contructed at its gable. A vestry and porch was added at the west end of the south wall in 1934, possibly incorporating earlier masonry, and there is a doorway at the east end of the south wall into the laird’s pew.

The interior is now ordered with the communion table to the west and the pulpit to the north-west; a timber arcaded laird’s pew is at the east end. The internal north and west walls have been stripped of their plaster and the masonry ribbon pointed. The ribbed plaster ceiling is of four-centred profile with tie bars. A font basin is said to have been brought from Nunlands House in about 1471.

Notes

1. Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland (Scottish record Society), 1967, p. 70.

2. National Records of Scotland, Miscellaneous Ecclesiastical Records, CH8/16.

3. G.A.C. Binnie, The Churches and Churchyards of Berwickshire, Ladykirk, 1995, pp. 249-50.

4. Statistical Account of Scotland, 1791-99, vol. 11, p. 185.

5. James Robson, The Churches and Churchyards of Berwickshire, Kelso, 1896, p. 116.