76 Antiquities of Gikthon. 



have been invited to contribute a paper on the Antiquities of 

 Girthou, it has occurred to me that tliere are, unfortunately, not 

 many people able to say much more on the subject than myself. 

 And it is possible that even the ievf imperfect and unlearned 

 hints I am able to offer may lead to a deeper investigation by some 

 more competent person. 



Girthon is not a parish that figures largely in history. Celtic 

 scholars say that the name is an abbreviation of " Girth-avon " — 

 " the enclosure or sanctuary on the river." It has passed through 

 various forms — Gerthoiin, Girthton, Girton, are all found. It is 

 certainly difficult to say what enclosure or sanctuary can have 

 suggested the name, for the ancient church, which is now in ruins, 

 is not near the river Fleet. A curious instance of the tendency 

 of the uncultured mind to invent a myth to account for a name is 

 to be found in a tradition repeated by old people till within a few 

 years ago. That old church, they said, was the third that has 

 stood on the same spot. This may be true enough. But they 

 added that the first had been built on the place because a gentle- 

 man had been killed there when hunting, through the slipping of his 

 saddlegirth. There may be some foundation for the story, although 

 I have never been able to find a trace of it. But it looks as if it 

 had been invented to give a derivation for the name, which is, of 

 course, absurd. 



The church, now in ruins, is undoubtedly ancient. That it is 

 a pre-Reformation building- is quite evident from the piscina in the 

 south wall at the east end. I cannot hazard a conjecture as to 

 its date, and I have been quite unable to find out to what saint it 

 was dedicated. It was used as a place of worship down to 1817, 

 when the present parish church was built in Gatehouse, which is 

 quite a modern town. The ancient bell — cast iu Bristol — and 

 given to the Kirk by Murray of Broughton in 1733 (as a Latin 

 inscription sets forth), was removed to the new building, and has 

 been disused only within the last 18 months. At the east end of 

 the old church is buried Robert Lennox, a Covenanter, shot in 

 1685. He was a relative of the Lennoxes, who were then the 

 lairds of Gaily, and it may be claimed that his tombstone is 

 undoubtedly the work of Old Mortality, on the authority of Sir 

 Walter Scott himself, who tells a very curious story of the old 

 man working in the Kirkyard of Girthou, at the end of the Intro- 

 duction to his famous novel. 



