St Patrick Street, Old Parish Church - Portpatrick, Scotland, UK
N 54° 50.560 W 005° 06.988
30U E 364093 N 6079336
The Old Parish Church (also known as St. Andrew's Kirk) in Portpatrick, Scotland, is a Category A listed building on the Historic Environment Scotland register.
Waymark Code: WMWQZG
Location: Southern Scotland, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/04/2017
Views: 1
"1628-9. Roofless cruciform-plan church with earlier round tower to W. Date 1629 incised on a chancel skewputt. Rubble with red sandstone dressings. 63 feet 6 inches in length measuring from E to W, excluding projection of W tower; 24 feet 10 inches in width. Rectangular window openings (mullions removed in 1791). Entrances to W wall of N transept, S transept gable and nave?s S side (blocked). Remains of screen wall which separated W end of church (probably a later addition).
W Tower: 4-stage circular plan tower with string course dividing 2nd and 3rd stages. 16 feet 8 inches in diameter with 3 feet 6 inches thick walls. Slated round cupola added by Robert Montgomery, mason and Alexander Robinson, Wright, in 1791. Entrances to W at 1st stage and to E at 2nd stage (infilled). Small openings to each stage."
--Historic Environment Scotland (
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"This ruined church, dating from 1629, may itself stand on the ruins of an earlier church, known as St Patrick's Chapel. The circular tower may date from the 1520s, and originally stood on its own. Its unusual shape (for Scotland) may mean that it was either a lighthouse for the harbour, or heavily influenced by Irish architecture.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, when Portpatrick was an important ferry port for passengers, postal mail and freight between Ireland and Scotland, the village was described as the Gretna Green for Ireland. There was a daily packet boat from Donaghadee, and marriages for couples from Ireland were conducted by the Church of Scotland minister in Portpatrick, although according to Brack (1997) he often overlooked the rules about the publication of banns or the required period of residence. It's believed that happy couples could disembark, complete the ceremony, and be back on board within an hour.
The graveyard around the church contains memorials to many victims of shipwrecks in nearby waters. Joined to the original chapel was a district by the name of the Black Quarter of Inch. When the church was rebuilt in 1629, the Black Quarter was disjoined from Inch and erected as the Parish of Montgomorie. The name of the parish however was changed after only two or three years to that of Portpatrick."
--Wikipedia (
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"The ruins of the old parish church of Portpatrick are cruciform in plan and bear the dates 1622 and 1629. It measures 63'6"E-W, excluding the tower, and 24'10" N-S, over walls 3'3"-3'9" thick. The west end of the church is separated from the other parts by a crosswall, probably a later erection.
The circular tower is four-storeys high with a steep slate roof, apparently modern. It seems to have been erected originally as a watch tower, or possibly in connection with an older church which was removed to make way for the existing building in the 17th c.
The church is now roofless and neglected and the tower is used as a dovecot. The interior of the church and the surrounding churchyard are a mass of tangled vegetation. This church replaces a pre-Reformation chapel, called Chapel Patrick, dedicated to that saint, and was itself replaced in 1842, by a church built elsewhere."
--Canmore (
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