Skulferatu #79 - Durisdeer Parish Church, Durisdeer, Dumfries and Galloway

 

At the foot of the Lowther Hills there sits the tiny hamlet of Durisdeer.  In the centre of this little community, of no more than a dozen houses, there sits a rather grand Parish Church.  The unexpected grandeur of the church is due to the patronage of the Dukes of Queensberry, who resided a few miles away at Drumlanrig Castle.  The mausoleum for the Queensberry family is housed within a building attached to the church.  Since Medieval times a church has stood on the site, with the present building being the result of a major rebuild that was carried out in 1699.   Other major works were then carried out on the building in the 18^th and the mid-19^th century.

 

Durisdeer Parish Church

 

Durisdeer Parish Church

 

Durisdeer Parish Church

 

Today, after walking along the winding country roads that take you to Durisdeer, I made my way through from the main gate of the church grounds and into the churchyard. Amongst the many old, weathered and moss covered gravestones there, my attention was drawn to one that stood by the walls of the church.  This being the ‘Martyrs Grave’, a table top gravestone dedicated to Daniel McMichael, a Covenanter who was killed in 1685.

 

The Martyrs Grave

 

The Martyrs Grave

 

The Covenanters were followers of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland who rejected the idea of the King being the spiritual head of the church.  As far as they were concerned only Jesus Christ could be the head of their church. The name Covenanter comes from the fact that in 1638 many of those who opposed interference in their church by the King signed a document to this effect called the National Covenant.  The Stuart kings, Charles I and later, after the Restoration, Charles II, were not happy about their roles and their ‘divine rights’ being called into question and saw the Covenanters as rebels.  This led to many hundreds of the Covenanters being imprisoned, transported, or executed.  Platoons of Dragoons scoured the land looking for these rebels and when they found any, they often summarily executed them.

 

Daniel McMichael was one of two brothers who had both become Covenanters.  His brother James had been killed the year before, in 1684, whilst fighting against a group of soldiers who had come to arrest him and his friends.  In January 1685, Daniel had come down with a severe fever and illness.  However, his friends would still come and meet with him at his house so they could worship together.  At one of these meetings a lookout spotted a platoon of Dragoons heading their way and, realising that they had been betrayed and the location of their meeting place given to the authorities, he ran back to inform his friends.  The group quickly packed up and left, wrapping Daniel in the blankets from his bed and taking him with them.  They then took shelter in a nearby cave, but soon learnt that the Dragoons had been informed about the cave, so had to flee again.  However, as they were burdened with carrying Daniel, they found the going slow and Daniel, who realised that the authorities would soon catch up with them, told then to leave him behind and flee.  The friends reluctantly did this and left Daniel in another cave in the hope that he would not be found.  Unfortunately for Daniel, the hounds the Dragoons had with them soon sniffed him out and he was taken prisoner.  He was then dragged down to Durisdeer where he was questioned, then asked to take an oath of allegiance to the King and recognise him as the head of the church.  Daniel refused to do this.  The next day he was taken to be marched to another village around 12 miles away, but it was found that he was too ill to walk that far.  So, a few miles from Durisdeer, at the entrance to the nearby Dalveen Pass he was told to prepare to die.  He was then given a few minutes to pray while a party of soldiers were brought together to carry out the execution.  At a given signal the soldiers then shot him.  His body was later taken down to Durisdeer and buried in the churchyard.

 

The epitaph on his gravestone reads –

 

As Daniel cast was into lions’ den,

For praying unto God, and not to men;

Thus lions cruelly devoured me,

For bearing unto truth my testimony.

I rest in peace until Jesus rend the cloud,

And judge ‘twixt me and those who shed my blood.

 

On walking round the graveyard and going into the main part of the church I found there was some major refurbishment work going on.  I had a nose around anyway and on making my way upstairs I found two young crows who had got trapped in the building and were desperately crashing against the windows in their effort to get out.  Taking off my jacket I managed to catch them one at time, wrap them in it and get them out.  They screamed at me all the way out, but happily flew off once outside.  My good deed done for the day I cleaned the cobwebs, feathers, and bird shit from my jacket, and then wandered around the outside of the building.  There I found an entrance at the back of the church and into the mausoleum. 

 

Inside the mausoleum are the Queensberry Marbles.  These ornate, and very white sculptures, commemorate James Douglas, the second Duke of Queensberry and his wife, Lady Mary Boyle.  The Duke was known as the ‘Union Duke’ for his role in securing the union of the parliaments of England and Scotland in 1707.  This role made him very rich and led to him being given various honours and titles such as the Duke of Dover, Marquess of Beverley, and Earl of Ripon.  However, it also made him very unpopular with a large part of the population of Scotland, especially within Edinburgh, where he had a second home, Queensberry House.  There, the rumour soon spread that while the festivities, riots or whatever had been going on to celebrate the union, the Duke’s son James, who was a little bit strange, had killed, cooked, and eaten a young servant boy.  I’m not sure if the story has any truth to it, or if it was meant as a representation of the smaller country of Scotland being consumed by its larger neighbour, but it’s a story that has stuck and is still told today on many of the ghost tours that stroll around Edinburgh.

 

The Queensberry Marbles

 

A detail of the Queensberry Marbles

 

On leaving the mausoleum I made my way round to the old gravestones at the back of the church. 

 

Gravestone in Durisdeer Churchyard

 

Gravestone in Durisdeer Churchyard

Durisdeer churchyard and Parish Church

 

Gravestone in Durisdeer Churchyard

 

I then found a rather marvellous moss and lichen covered stone.  It was for a David Scott, but other than his name and the fact that his body lay there I could make out nothing more of the inscription.  But what does that matter, when the carved skulls on the sides of his stone have become quite wonderful in the way they have aged.

 

Gravestones in Durisdeer Churchyard, with David Scott’s stone in foreground

 

Carved skull on side of David Scott’s gravestone

 

Carved skull on side of David Scott’s gravestone

 

Carved skull on side of David Scott’s gravestone

 

Carved skull on side of David Scott’s gravestone

 

Before leaving the graveyard, I gave in to temptation, and left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk in the mossy nasal cavity of one of the carved skulls.

 

Skulferatu #79

 

Skulferatu #79 in the mossy skull on a gravestone

 

Skulferatu #79 in the mossy skull on a gravestone

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #79

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.315532

Longitude -3.743814

 

I used the following sources for information on Durisdeer Church and the churchyard -

 

Traditions of the Covenanters

Or Gleanings among the Mountains

By Rev. Robert Simpson

1870

 

The Martyr Graves of Scotland

By J. H. Thomson

1903

 

Monuments and Monumental Inscriptions in Scotland

by Charles Rogers

1871

 

Canmore

https://canmore.org.uk/site/46336/durisdeer-parish-church

 

Wikipedia

James Douglas, 3rd Marquess of Queensberry - Wikipedia

Skulferatu #55 - Graveyard at Parish Church of Penpont, Keir and Tynron, Penpont, Dumfries and Galloway

 

Penpont is a small village in Dumfries and Galloway.  It was once an important staging post for travellers, and on the main street it has a tearoom and gallery that is still a popular stopping off point for cyclists, ramblers, locals, and tourists.

 

The man who may have invented the bicycle, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, lived a short distance from Penpont, and Joseph Thomson, the explorer who gave his name to Thomson’s Gazelle, was born in the village.

 

The Parish Church of Penpont, dominates the skyline of the village, and stands on a low hill above the Scaur Water.  It was designed by Charles Howitt and built in 1867 to replace the church that originally stood on the site.  The design of the church is a large cruciform in the Gothic style, with a tall tower and spire in the north-east corner.  It was constructed using local pink sandstone.

 

The Parish Church of Penpont

 

The gravestones in the graveyard date mainly from the 17^th to 18^th centuries, though there were some that dated from the 11^th and 12^th centuries.  These, however, were removed and are now in Dumfries Museum.  Among those buried in the graveyard is John Ross, a soldier who fought at the battle of Waterloo defending the Quarte Bras Farmhouse. 

 

Gravestones in Penpont Churchyard

 

Detail of memorial in Penpont Churchyard

 

Grave of Samuel Hislop

 

Gravestone at Penpont Churchyard

 

Memento Mori – detail from a gravestone

 

Please Do Not Drive Over Graves Thank You

 

Gravestone at Penpont Churchyard

 

Gravestone of Patrick Boyle

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk in the shelter underneath a table top gravestone.  The engraving on the gravestone was badly worn, but it appeared to be the grave of one Patrick Boyle, who had died in the 1790s.  In the gap underneath there were bits of old, broken pottery, some spiders, and the lower branches of a nearby holly bush.  My Skulferatu joined them there.

 

Skulferatu #55

 

Skulferatu #55 under Patrick Boyle’s gravestone

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #55

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.231176

Longitude -3.811273

 

I used the following sources for information –

 

Scotland’s Churches Trust

Penpont, Keir and Tynron Church

 

Penpont Heritage Centre

Penpont Heritage Centre

Skulferatu #48 - Dick Turpin's Grave, St George's Graveyard, York

 

I first discovered Dick Turpin’s grave many years ago on a damp, February evening.  I think I was in York on some work related business and was staying in a nearby hotel.  After a few beers I went outside for a sneaky cigarette and on walking around the corner of the hotel found myself in a small graveyard.  Most of the stones were laid flat in the ground with the exception of one at the far end of the cemetery.  I walked over to see which local worthy merited having the only standing tombstone and found that it marked the grave of the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin.  All I knew of him was the legendary (and very untrue) story of his ride from London to York on his horse Black Bess, to enable him to have an alibi for a crime he had been involved in.  I imagined him as a character much like Adam Ant in the video for his song ‘Stand and Deliver’, a handsome and slightly androgynous man, dressed in fancy clothes, a bit of makeup and being quite charming as he relieved rich travellers of their ill gotten money and valuables.  A bit of a Robin Hood character.  Unfortunately, as is usually the case, the truth does not live up to the legend.

 

St George’s Graveyard, York

 

The grave of Richard ‘Dick’ Turpin

 

Gravestone of Richard ‘Dick’ Turpin

 

Richard Turpin was born in 1705 in Essex and was a butcher by trade.  In the 1730s he became involved with a gang of Essex poachers known as the Gregory Gang, probably by helping them sell on and dispose of the deer they had hunted and killed.  As the crimes of the gang diversified, Turpin joined with them in a series of violent and brutal housebreakings and robberies.  These crimes caused such an outrage that in 1735 the Duke of Newcastle offered a £50 reward (around £11,000 in today’s money) for information leading to the capture of the culprits.  Several members of the gang were caught, and they quickly betrayed and named Turpin and the other gang members.  Turpin and the remaining members of the gang went on to commit several more robberies, but with most of them soon captured by the authorities, Turpin fled and for a while kept a low profile.   

 

In 1737 Turpin joined up with two other highwaymen and committed a series of robberies around the Waltham Forest area.  After being involved in a fatal shooting, Turpin again fled, this time to a hideaway in Epping Forest.  There he committed several more robberies.  Then, one day while he was out and about in the forest looking for someone suitable to rob, he came across Thomas Morris.  Morris recognised Turpin and presented his blunderbuss at him with the intention of capturing him and handing him over to the authorities.  Turpin, however, did not particularly fancy facing the law and the hangman yet, so he quickly dived behind an oak tree, drew his guns and shot Morris dead.  Then, before he could escape the scene, Turpin heard others approaching, drawn by the noise of the shooting.  Unable to flee, he hid himself in a Yew Tree and remained there for almost two days while he waited for those searching for him to move on.  Eventually, when all was quiet, he made his getaway. 

 

In June 1737 a reward of £200 (around £44,000 in today’s money) was offered for the capture of Turpin for the murder of Morris.  A pardon was also offered to any of his accomplices who could lead the authorities to him.  At this time a description of Turpin was given describing him as being ‘…about thirty years of age, by trade a butcher, about five feet nine inches high, of a brown complexion, very much marked with the Small-Pox, his cheek bones broad, his face thinner towards the bottom, his visage short, pretty upright, and broad about the shoulders.’  So, not much like Adam Ant then.

 

After carrying out a few more robberies in and around Epping Forest, Turpin, obviously beginning to feel the heat, left the area and made his way up to Yorkshire.

 

In Yorkshire Turpin masqueraded as a horse trader named John Palmer and stole horses to sell them on.  He made friends with several of the locals and often went out hunting with them.  One day, on returning from hunting, he spotted his landlord’s game cock strutting around in the street next to his lodgings.  Being a bit of a psychotic creep and a bully, Turpin thought it would be fun to shoot it, so drew his gun and blew it away.  One of the landlord’s friends saw him do this and remonstrated with him.  Turpin then threatened to shoot him too.  The landlord, on being told of what had happened, obtained a warrant, and had Turpin detained.  Turpin then appeared before three Justices of the Peace and was committed to the House of correction at Beverley.  The Justices of the Peace were suspicious about how Turpin had made his money and suspecting that it may have been through criminal activity, they made enquiries about him.  It was soon established that Turpin was suspected of carrying out thefts of both horses and sheep.  As horse theft was a capital crime that could result in the death penalty it was decided to transfer Turpin to be held at the more secure location of York Castle.

 

While in prison there, Turpin wrote to his brother in law in Essex.  However, he refused the letter, and it was returned to the post office where James Smith, who had taught Turpin to read and write, saw it.  He recognised the handwriting and travelled to York where he identified John Palmer as being none other than Dick Turpin.  For this Smith was given the £200 reward that had been advertised for the capture of Turpin.

 

On the 22^nd of March 1739 Turpin stood trial at York for the theft of several horses.  He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

 

On Saturday the 7^th of April 1739 Turpin was taken in an open cart through York to the place of execution at Knavesmire.  It was noted that he behaved with ‘amazing assurance’ and bowed to the spectators gathering to watch him hang.  As he climbed the ladder to the gallows it was noticed that his right leg trembled, and he stamped down to stop it.  He then spoke to the hangman for a few minutes and confessed to him that he was the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin and recounted some of the robberies he had been involved in.  On finishing his chat with the hangman, Turpin threw himself from the ladder.  He then died after about five minutes and his body was left to hang for several hours before being cut down.

 

Turpin’s corpse was taken to a local inn at about three that afternoon and was buried the next morning in St George’s Churchyard.  Shortly after being buried, it was reported that his body had been dug up and stolen.  There was a huge outcry about this, and the body snatchers and Turpin’s corpse were soon found.  Turpin’s body was quickly reburied, and this time was covered in quicklime.

 

And that would be the end of that, or so you’d think, but now there is some doubt that the gravestone really does mark the grave of the notorious Dick Turpin.  It is thought that the stone, placed at the grave a couple of hundred years after Turpin’s death, was put there more as a tourist attraction and that Turpin would have been buried in an unmarked grave.  Whatever the truth is, I don’t know, but I’ll take it as being the place where Dick Turpin is buried…probably.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my wanders around York to the grave, in the hollow of a tree overlooking the graveyard.

 

Skulferatu #48

 

Skulferatu #48 in hollow in a tree overlooking Dick Turpin’s Grave

 

Google Map showing location of Skulferatu #48

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 53.954961

Longitude -1.076049

 

I used the following sources for information on Dick Turpin –

 

Wikipedia – Dick Turpin

Wikipedia - Dick Turpin

 

The Trial of the Notorious Highwayman, Richard Turpin

By Thomas Kyll

Wikisource - The Trial of the Notorious Highwayman Richard Turpin

 

Derby Mercury – Thursday, 30^th June 1737

 

The Newcastle Courant – Saturday, April 21, 1739

 

The Yorkshire Post – Wednesday, 5^th July 2017

 

Tourist information sign at site

 

Values of rewards in today’s money offered for capture of Turpin calculated using the bank of England’s Inflation Calculator

Inflation calculator | Bank of England

 

Skulferatu #44 - Glasgow Necropolis, Glasgow

 

I had never been to Glasgow Necropolis before this visit.  It’s one of these places I’ve always meant to go to, but for some reason I’d assumed it was miles out of Glasgow City Centre.  It is not.  It is only about a twenty-five minute walk from Queen Street Railway Station.  So, after deciding that I had to explore more of Glasgow, I made my way up there.  On reaching Glasgow Cathedral I crossed over the Bridge of Sighs, so called because of the countless number of funeral processions that crossed over it, and made my way over into the cemetery.

 

The Bridge of Sighs leading into Glasgow Necropolis

 

The graveyard is quite spectacular with its huge monuments to many eminent Victorians, most of whom no-one remembers now.  Such is the way; we are all soon forgotten.  In a hundred years from now only a handful of us will be remembered and most of us won’t even merit a footnote in the history books written about our era…but I digress. 

 

On my wanders around I passed a memorial to William Miller.  The name meant nothing to me, but the inscription enlightened me that he was the author of Wee Willie Winkie and that is a nursery rhyme that I, along with many others, remember from our childhood.  Well, the first verse anyway, I don’t think the nursery rhymes books I had went any further than that verse, which went –

 

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,

Upstairs and downstairs in his night-gown,

Rapping at the window, crying through the lock,

Are the children all in bed, for now it’s eight o’clock?

 

This is actually a pretty anglicised version compared to the original, which also gives the children’s bedtime as being a bit later, but then maybe the kids in Victorian era Glasgow got to stay up late, who knows?  Anyway, it goes -

 

 Wee Willie Winkie rins through the town,

Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-gown,

Tirling at the window, crying at the lock,

Are the weans in their bed, for it’s now ten o’clock?

 

As a child I always thought this rhyme was about a flasher.  I assume because Willie and Winkie were two words that I knew as meaning penis.  Also, because in the nursery rhymes book I had, Willie Winkie was depicted in his long night gown and flashers, we were always told, wore long raincoats, so the two somehow became intertwined.  Ah, those innocent days back in the 1970s.

 

Memorial to William Millar, author of Wee Willie Winkie

 

I then made my way round and up to the top of the hill.  It is here that one can find some of the more spectacular monuments in the Necropolis, along with the most Glaswegian looking Jesus I’ve ever seen.

 

Archibald Douglas Monteath Mausoleum

 

View over gravestones and memorials

 

View over gravestones and memorials

 

View to top of Necropolis and John Knox statue

 

Tomb of John Henry Alexander – Proprietor and manager of the Theatre Royal, Glasgow

 

Detail from tomb of John Henry Alexander

 

Carved saintly figures on tomb - spray painted

 

View of Glasgow Cathedral from the Necropolis

 

Tombs on the top of the hill

 

Angels grieving the loss of some Victorian worthy

 

“It is finished.” Hear him cry, Learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Burial place of Isaac and Mary Blackwood

 

Lamb of God

 

Glasgow Necropolis stands in an area of land that was originally called Craig’s Park, but which after being planted with Fir trees in the 1700s was then called (roll of drums) Fir Park.  The statue of John Knox, at the top of the hill, was erected in 1825, prior to the area becoming a cemetery.  Glasgow Necropolis was officially opened in 1833 as a place for public interment, though a small Jewish Cemetery had been established in the lower grounds in 1832. Many of the great and the good of Victorian Glasgow are buried here with ostentatious tombs or gravestones marking their burial plots, though there are also several thousand unmarked graves of the less well known or celebrated.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on today’s walk in a gap in a wall overlooking the lower grounds of the Necropolis.

 

Skulferatu #44

 

Skulferatu #44 in gap in wall at Glasgow Necropolis

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #44

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.863343

Longitude -4.232009

 

I used the following sources for information on Glasgow Necropolis –

 

Sketches of Glasgow Necropolis

By George Blair

1857

 

The Peoples History of Glasgow

By John K McDowall

1899

 

The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes

Edited by Iona and Peter Opie

Oxford University Press

1992

 

Wikipedia – Glasgow Necropolis

Wikipedia - Glasgow Necropolis

 

Article and photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.