Undiscovered Scotland

 

A sign at the junction between the A97 two miles south of Rhynie in Aberdeenshire and the B9002 heading west directs visitors to “Auchindoir Church”. This, it indicates, is an ancient monument half a mile along the B road.

Yet if you follow the sign, you find yourself confronted by the sight of a ruined church only a couple of hundred yards away, up an access road to the right. Follow this, and you come to the gable end of a ruined church with a sign indicating you have arrived at the Church of Old Auchindoir. It’s worth knowing that this is NOT the ruin of St Mary's Kirk, Auchindoir, cared for by Historic Environment Scotland. That lies a little further along the B road and on the left. (Continues below image...)

 

It’s also worth knowing that the Church of Old Auchindoir, sometimes know as Auchindoir North Parish Church, repays a visit as it’s an interesting building in its own right. The church was built in 1810 to replace the medieval St Mary's Kirk, and was itself declared redundant in the early 1990s. The slate roof was then removed, with all the fixtures and fittings and everything else except the standing walls you see today.

The church is rectangular in plan, and built of coursed and squared granite rubble. There are four (glassless) Gothic windows in the south-west wall, and the building has a bellcote and a square projection at the rear which would have contained a stair. Sometime after it was built, a vestry was added to the north-west gable. This has since been demolished. Internally, accommodation was increased by a U-plan gallery supported on square columns.

Just to the north-east of the church is a modern graveyard which contains six Commonwealth war graves, of men killed in the First and Second World Wars.