A Corpus of Scottish Medieval
Parish Churches

Historical outline

Dedication: St Lawrence(1)

Early references to this church seem to be entirely lacking despite the association of the lands of Lundie with the prominent noble family of Durward or de Lundie.  When it first occurs in a surviving record it is as an independent parsonage, being entered in the tax rolls of the papal tax-collector in Scotland in 1275 as paying two-and-a-half merks in tax.(2)  Parsons of the church are recorded from the 1390s into the 1460s.(3) 

The church was to become one of the endowments of the collegiate church of Fowlis Easter (qv) but when exactly either that establishment was formally founded and the annexation of the revenues of Lundie to support prebendaries within it occurred remained very uncertain.(4)  Edward Grey, a kinsman of the founder of the collegiate church Patrick, Lord Grey, is recorded as rector of Lundie in September 1530, which implies that the full establishment of the college had not yet occurred or possibly just that Lundie had not yet been annexed.(5)  The first mention of a provost and the seven prebendaries of the collegiate church only occurs in 1538.  The annexation had been effected by 1557 when Thomas Ireland, vicar of Lundie, is recorded.(6)  Ireland was probably a pensionary vicar for at the Reformation it seems that the parsonage and vicarage of Lundie had been annexed.  At that time the parsonage and vicarage were held by Mr Nicoll Spitall, it also being recorded that the ‘chapell of Ballumby is annexit to the paroche kirk of Lundy’ but was in the hands of James Fothringtoun, parson and vicar thairof.  Lundie was valued at £134.(7)

Notes

1. J M Mackinlay, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland: Non-scriptural Dedications (Edinburgh, 1914), 393.  There was a St Lawrence’s Fair in the parish.

2. A I Dunlop (ed), ‘Bagimond’s Roll: Statement of the Tenths of the Kingdom of Scotland’, Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, vi (1939), 36.

3. Calendar of Papal Letters to Scotland of Clement VII of Avignon 1378-1394, ed C Burns (Scottish History Society, 1976), 186; Calendar of Papal Letters to Scotland of Benedict XIII of Avignon 1394-1419, ed F McGurk (Scottish History Society, 1976), 45, 108; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Petitions to the Pope, ed W H Bliss (London, 1896), 592; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland:Papal Letters, xi, 1455-1464, ed J A Twemlow (London, 1921), 427.

4. For the convoluted foundation process of the collegiate church, see I B Cowan and D E Easson, Medieval Religious Houses: Scotland (London, 1976), 221.

5. NRS Records of King James VI Hospital, Perth, Altarages, GD79/4/1.

6. NRS Protocol Book of Duncan Gray, 1554-72, NP1/19, fol. 12v.

7. J Kirk (ed), The Books of Assumption of the Thirds of Benefices (Oxford, 1995), 376-7.

Summary of relevant documentation

Medieval

Synopsis of Cowan’s Parishes: The teinds of the parish were divided between the prebends of Fowlis Collegiate church (1522x38). The cure was a vicarage pensionary.(1)

Mackinlay notes that the church was dedicated to St Lawrence and that there was a fair on his feast day held in the parish.(2)

1393 Dispensation for Patrick Palding to hold Lundie and canon and prebend of Moray.(3)

1395 Patrick de Spalding (same man as above?) (MA and student of canon law, describes himself as kinsman of Robert III) holds Lundie as well as prebends in Aberdeen, Dunkeld and Brechin.(4)

1461 William Wodman obtains parish church of Lundie.(5)

1530 (3 Sept) Instrument of Sasine in favor of Mr. Walter Allanson, chaplain of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lorretto in Perth founded by Sir Edward Gray, Rector of Lundie, of parts of a tenement on the North Side of the Southgate newly built and an Annual rent of 26/- furth of a tenement in the Watergate on the resignation of the said Edward Gray.(6)

1557 (30 Aug) Thomas Ireland, vicar of Lundie acts as procurator for John Campbell of Lundie.(7)

Post-medieval

Books of assumption of thirds of benefices and Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices: The Parish church parson is described as Nicol Spitall of Lundie; vicarage £7 6s 8d, parsonage £127, total £134.(8) [No reference to Fowlis]

Account of Collectors of Thirds of Benefices (G. Donaldson): Third of parsonage and vicarage £40 2s 9 1/3d.(9)

[Kirk Session records survive from 1685-98 but contain no references to church fabric](10)

Statistical Account of Scotland (Rev Andrew Hally, 1791): ‘The church of Lundie lies exactly 3 miles and 120 feet distant from Foulis to the north west. When it was built cannot be ascertained’.(11)

New Statistical Account of Scotland (Rev Thomas Irvine, 1838 rev 1842): ‘There are still two churches in the united parish [of Lundie and Fowlis]. Lundie church is plain but conformable, of considerable antiquity, but well repaired about 40 years ago’.(12) (c.1802)

Notes

1. Cowan, The parishes of medieval Scotland, 141.

2. Mackinlay, Non-Scriptural Dedications, p. 393.

3. CPL, Clem, 185.

4. CPL, Ben, 45 & 108. CPP, 592.

5. CPL, xi, 427.

6. NRS Records of King James VI Hospital, Perth, Altarages, GD79/4/1.

7. NRS Prot Bk of Duncan Gray, 1554-72, NP1/19, fol. 12v.

8. Kirk, The books of assumption of the thirds of benefices, 376-77.

9. Donaldson, Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices, 9.

10. NRS Lundie Kirk Session, 1685-1698, CH2/254/1.

11. Statistical Account of Scotland, (1791), vii, 287.

12. New Statistical Account of Scotland, (1838, rev 1842), xi, 466.

Bibliography

NRS Prot Bk of Duncan Gray, 1554-72, NP1/19.

NRS Records of King James VI Hospital, Perth, Altarages, GD79/4/1.

Calendar of entries in the Papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland; Papal letters, 1893-, ed. W.H. Bliss, London.

Calendar of entries in the Papal registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland; Papal Petitions, 1893-, ed. W.H. Bliss, London.

Calendar of Papal letters to Scotland of Benedict XIII of Avignon, 1976, ed. F. McGurk, (Scottish History Society) Edinburgh.

Calendar of Papal letters to Scotland of Clement VII of Avignon, 1976, ed. C. Burns, (Scottish History Society) Edinburgh.

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

Donaldson, G., 1949, Accounts of the collectors of thirds of benefices, (Scottish History Society), Edinburgh.

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

Mackinlay, J.M, 1914, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland. Non-Scriptural Dedications, Edinburgh.

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

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

Architectural description

Lundie appears to have remained a free parsonage until, at a date between 1522 and 1538, both the parsonage and the vicarage were annexed to the prebends of nearby Fowlis Easter Collegiate Church. After that the cure was probably served by a pensionary vicar.(1) Following the Reformation, in 1618 the parishes of Lundie and Fowlis were united by a decree of the High Commission,(2) though both churches remained in use for worship.

In 1787-9 a mausoleum for Sir William Duncan was built to the designs of Robert Mylne, on the site of the medieval chancel,(3) and the date 1789 is inscribed on the lintel above the entrance in the south face. Further works are said to have been carried out ‘about forty years ago’ in 1838.(4) The church is said to have been repaired in about 1847,(5) and there was a major remodelling and restoration by Thomas Saunders Robertson in 1893,(6) when a south porch was added, the mausoleum was adapted as a vestry and the interior was lined with timber boarding.

In its earliest state, the church was evidently a relatively small two-cell structure. A sketch of uncertain provenance showing the church from the south east before the addition of the Duncan Mausoleum in 1789 shows what was presumably the remodelled nave of the church, with a wide blocked east arch on its east side that must presumably be understood as the chancel arch of the Romanesque church.(7) All other features represented in that sketch are clearly post-medieval, with two round-arched doorways below small rectangular windows, alternating with three slightly larger rectangular windows. Above the east gable is a square birdcage bellcote.

A twelfth-century origin for the building is supported by masonry on the north side of the building as it now stands. The western two-thirds of that wall is constructed of carefully cut blocks of irregularly coursed masonry rising from a chamfered base course. That base course turns at the junction with the west wall, indicating that the west wall is also on its medieval line, and at the centre of the west wall is a buttress that may also be medieval in origin.

Towards the east end of the stretch of early masonry along the north wall is a narrow window with a round arch cut into a lintel block, that has a widely splayed rear arch towards the interior. East of that length of masonry the walling is less regularly coursed, suggesting it has been rebuilt, and there is a blocked rectangular window that may have corresponded to the easternmost of the windows shown in the south face in the view discussed above.

Taking account of the church’s width of about 5.65 metres, it is likely that the south wall also incorporates medieval masonry, though this wall has been more extensively rebuilt than its northern counterpart. Replacing the pattern of doors and windows shown in the pre-1789 view, there is now a different pattern of pointed-arched windows and doors with block imposts that perhaps date from the operations of either around 1800, or less likely of around 1847.

The Duncan Mausoleum on the site of the chancel is square externally and octagonal internally, with a dome of stepped profile rising above the wall-head cornice. The three exposed faces are articulated by arches, those to east and north being blind, and that to the south housing the rectangular entrance below a lunette framed within radiating block voussoirs.

The porch of 1893 towards the west end of the south wall has a south window that is set within a broad hood mould decorated with sawtooth chevron, and it may be wondered if this has been recycled from – or copied from - the chancel arch. Inside the church is the upper part of a late medieval canopy head that is said to have been ‘found built in a wall near the church’, and which it was speculated could have been from a Sacrament House.(8) Its ogee arch has schematically carved crockets and a finial, and it is flanked by crocketed pinnacles capped by finials.

Notes

1. Ian B. Cowan, The Parishes of Medieval Scotland (Scottish Record Society), 1967, p. 141.

2. Statistical Account of Scotland, 1791-99, vol. 7, p. 281.

3. Howard Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 4th ed., New Haven and London, 2008 p. 726; Library of the Royal Institure of British Architects, Robert Mylne’s Diary, entries for 6 October 1786, 31 Jamuary and 3 February 1787.

4. New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1834-45, vol. 11, p.466.

5. John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland, London and Edinburgh, vol. 2, p. 583; Francis H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, Edinburgh, vol. 5, 1884.

6. John Gifford, The Buildings of Scotland, Dundee and Angus, New Haven and London, 2012, pp. 602-3.

7. Reproduced in David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, Edinburgh, vol. 1, 1896, p. 382.

8. MacGibbon and Ross, vol. 1, 1896, p. 383.