St Ternan's Kirkyard - Arbuthnott, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. - Churchyard Cemeteries on Waymarking.com

St Ternan's Kirk was first built in 1242 to the south of the hamlet of Arbuthnott in The Mearns, a large rural area near the east coast of Scotland.

The church was dedicated to David de Bernham, the Bishop of St.Andrews on August 3rd 1242 and named for St Ternan, born into a Pictish family in The Mearns in the first half of the 5th century, who went on Ireland and took part in missionary work before becoming an Abbot in Leinster.

The chancel and part of the nave remain from the 13th century, with additions of the belltower at the west end, and the Arbuthnott Aisle, extending to the south, both added by Sir Robert Arbuthnott of that Ilk in 1500. The church remains one of the few remaining for worship dating before the reformation.

The graveyard surrounds the church on the north, west and south sides, with the newer part to the west beyond a depression where the kirkyard boundary once was. The area to the west being the site of the old Arbuthnott School which was demolished in 1920. To the east of the church is the former Manse House.

Among the memorials in the graveyard is the family plot of local novelist, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, the pen name of James Leslie Mitchell, who's ashes are interned in the south-west corner of the graveyard.

The photographed gravestone near the entrance reads as follows:

'ERECTED BY
JAMES GARDEN
IN LOVING MEMORY OF HIS SON
JOHN
WHO DIED 8th JUNE 1932
AGED 32 YEARS
ALSO HIS WIFE
FANNY MURRAY DAVIDSON
WHO DIED 1st AUGUST 1939
AGED 62 YEARS
ALSO THE ABOVE
JAMES GARDEN
WHO DIED 13th JANUARY 1952
AGED 76 YEARS'

The church and graveyard, situated in a wooded valley near the Bervie Water, is reached by a narrow public road which heads south from the B967 road at Arbuthnott.

Name of church or churchyard: Kirk of St Ternan Approximate Size: Large (100+)

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