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Dysart Parish Church (Brechin diocese)

Summary description

In vicinity of NO 69 53.

Historical outline

The lands of ‘Dyserth’ were amongst properties pertaining to the church of Restenneth in 1161-2 when King Malcolm IV granted that church to the canons of Jedburgh with the intention that they establish a priory cell there.(1) Although the place-name suggests that there was an early religious association with the site as a place of eremitical retreat, there is no evidence that there was an independent church at Dysart in the pre-Reformation period.  Cowan described it as ‘a common church of the canons of Brechin cathedral’,(2) and certainly in 1583 the teinds of Dysart were described as a former possession of them collectively.(3)  Beyond this, however, the pre-Reformation history of the church is utterly obscure.

Notes

1. RRS, i, no.195.

2. Cowan, Parishes, 57.

3. Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis, ii, Appendix, no.332.