Description

Earlier 18th century with alterations. Single storey Watch House; sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings; stone boundary wall.

S ELEVATION: door (later); blocked rectangular window to right, stone lintels.

E ELEVATION: blank; gablehead with stack; modern security lighting at gablehead.

N ELEVATION: coursed ashlar rear, no features; memorial wall adjacent.

W ELEVATION: not seen.

Original glazing pattern and roof lost.

INTERIOR: not seen.

KIRKYARD AND BOUNDARY WALLS: numerous "trade" gravestones and sepulchral monuments. Rubble boundary walls with copes.

Statement of Interest

B-Group with Old Glencorse Kirk. The Watch House was built possibly as an Offertory House, post 1711 then altered to protect newly buried bodies from grave robbers who came, stole corpses, then sold them to the School of Anatomy in Edinburgh. A family (Cowan/Sanford) burial ground is behind the structure, enclosure with inset memorial tablets in wall. The burial ground in which it is set features in 'The Body-Snatcher' and 'Weir of Hermiston' by Robert Louis Stevenson, who was a frequent visitor to the Old Kirk.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77775130

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)