17th and 18th Century Gravestones | Gravestone Photography by Ron Mccombe

Gravestones of the 17th and 18th Century

Crailing Old Church Parish

Scottish Borders

The King of Terrors Gravestone at Crailing Old Parish Churchyard

This old iconic and symbolic headstone of the old church building has survived and the graveyard has been fenced off and preserving a very excellent collection of 17th and 18th-century gravestones from livestock damage. All the symbols on this stone are emblems of mortality, the main one being the standing skeleton with the weapon of death, the scythe. It is the very idea of death, the King of Terrors, an ever-present idea. An upright hourglass is now missing from the right-hand side from above is missing from the right-hand side of the stone above the bell. It is visible in an image taken in 1985 and just shows how worthwhile it is to take record shots of these old gravestones.

Viking Hogback Stone of Luss

Lomond – Scotland

Viking Hogback Stone of Luss Lomand Scotland

This stone is thought to have dated from the Loch Lomond raid of 1263, when the Vikings had pillaged and settled on the lochside, maybe one Viking that stayed. It was unearthed in 1926 and was recently covered in moss, but now restored. The solid stone blocks are not, as the name might suggest, representations of pigs but stones designed to make the tombs of the dead look like mighty buildings in the Norse style. The bow-sided shape of the hogbacks is similar to the classic Viking house and the interlace patterns on them are also very Scandinavian in origin, but this type of stone is only found here in Britain. They are not to be found in Scandinavia; there were none to be found before the Vikings came here. It could be, as we were great carvers of stone, they saw this and emulated us. Govan in Glasgow has a large number of hogbacks and various other ancient stones, the hogbacks are found exclusively in areas of Northern Britain settled by Vikings, Southern Scotland, Cumbria and Yorkshire.

Gravestone commemorating Andrew Gemmell’s, Roxburgh Churchyard, Scottish Borders

This gravestone commemorates Andrew Gemmell’s, who was a ‘gaberlunzie’ (a wandering beggar) of the bedesman class, who died in 1793 aged 106. Immortalised as Edie Ochiltree in Walter Scott’s ‘The Antiquary’, the stone was erected in 1849 by a local farmer. On the reverse face is a portrait of Andrew and his dog. He wears his bedesman’s gown, traditionally made of a rough blue cloth, and carries a walking staff and his meal bag which he holds outstretched. Bedesmen were a special type of beggar, whose numbers equalled the king’s age. Once chosen, they held the right to beg anywhere in Scotland without hindrance, each year receiving money equal to the king’s age. In return they prayed for the King’s health.