page_title: Dalgarnock
section_title: The old church and churchyard
hierarchical_section_title: Dalgarnock / History / The old church and churchyard
caption_attribution_description: English: Dalgarnock burial ground, Thornhill, Dumfries &amp; Galloway. Site of a kirk with a village once located nearby together with St Ninian's Well.
context_page_description: Dalgarnock, Dalgarno, Dalgarnoc was an ancient parish and a once considerable sized village in the Nithsdale area of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, south of Sanquhar and north of Dumfries that enclosed the parish of Closeburn but was annexed to Closeburn in 1606 following the Reformation, separated again in 1648 and finally re-united in 1697, as part of the process that established the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It was a burgh of regality bordering the River Nith and Cample Water and held a popular market-tryst or fair from medieval times until 1601 when the Earl of Queensberry had them transferred to Thornhill, commemorated in song by Robert Burns, shortly before its demise and now only a remote churchyard remains at a once busy site.
context_section_description: Dalgarnock church (NX 8758 9362) stood about a mile south of Thornhill, dedicated to St Michael and granted to Holyrood Abbey by Edgar, son of Duvenald of Strathnith and confirmed by William the Lion. Edgar was the grandson of Donegal, a Scots-Irish chief, during the reign of David I (died 1153) who is said to have held Nithsdale or Strathnith with a castle at the site of the later Morton Castle near Durisdeer. The monks held the church until the reformation. The location may have been chosen owing to the rich lands of the holm bordering the River Nith.
  A person just recorded as Andrew is recorded in 1296 as the vicar of Dalgarnock, having sworn fealty to the English king Edward I, despite which in 1296 he had to petition the Sheriff of Dumfries to return the church to him. The church was confirmed to the Holyrood Abbey monks by William, Bishop of Glasgow, in 1240, by John Lindsay, Bishop of Glasgow in 1322-3 and by the Pope. From 1568 to 1585 the reader at the church was James Williamson who received a stipend and the use of the church lands of Kirkbog and Kirkland, the glebe of four and a half acres originally being located near Trigony. In 1593 Richard Brown served the church, followed by David Rogers in 1601 and Alexander Fleming in 1612.
  The income from the church went to the Bishop of Edinburgh and after the reformation were used to help maintain Edinburgh Castle.
  After the Reformation Dalgarnock was granted to Sir James Douglas of Drumlanrig who then passed it in 1594 to Thomas Kirkpatrick of Closeburn. In 1621 King Charles I granted it to Sir John Spotiswoode, however in 1633 the king established the bishopric of Edinburgh and granted them the church of Dalgarnock, with the manse, glebe, church lands and tithes, with a number of other churches which had belonged to the monastery of Holyrood Abbey. Kirkpatrick of Closeburn obtained the church and it stayed with that family until 1783 when it was sold to Menteth of Closeburn who in 1852 sold it to Douglas Baird, Esq., however he died in 1854 and is buried in Closeburn parish church cemetery with his wife Charlotte who died in 1864.
  Annexed to Closeburn in 1606, the church fell out of use in the 18th century when all services were transferred to Closeburn and has entirely disappeared due to robbing for the building of field dykes and near by houses with only the font surviving, preserved in the porch of Closeburn Church at first and then returned to Dalgarnock where it has been given a stand made from sections of possibly pre-reformation gravestone sections. Some ruins remained until the early 1800s. The parish was disjoined in 1648 and rejoined again in 1697.
  The Category B Listed churchyard contains several 17th and 18th century gravestones and a collective memorial to the Covenanter martyrs of the Nithsdale district. A cross's socket stone stood with a rectangular slot to the left of the churchyard entrance in 1950, however although this had been removed by the 1970s it was present again in 2017. One of the older graves is that of Nicola McMillan, wife of William Ferguson who died aged thirty in 1754, however a grave dated 1694 stands against the west wall with the village name, given as Dalgarnock. Burials were still taking place in the 1850s. A family burial plot of the Menteths of Closeburn dominates part of the burial ground. The oldest recorded grave is that of 'Iohn Smith Barnhil D Ian 1607'.
  A very unusual grave, given the Presbyterian links, is that of John Nivison, a surgeon who died in 1732, aged 42. His gravestone also commemorates his wife and four of his children. In addition to the traditional elements a figure is carved with arms that form part of a Green Man on the chest and foliage that reaches to the ground. In pagan religious beliefs such figures are seen as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of growth each season.
caption: Dalgarnock burial ground from Kirkbog Farm lane.
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