174 Tue HospiraAL OF SANQUHAR. 
the Royal Burgh of Sanquhar was fixed for the 22nd June, the 
festival day of St. Mary, so it may be that the Hospitallers had 
some influence in fixing that date. The Church of St. Nicholas 
seems to have been in existence until the Reformation, for in the 
Register of Deeds there is a decreet aribitral between John 
Chrichton of Ryehill and Edward Lord Chrichton of Sanquhar 
ordaining the former to pay to Mr Robert Chrichton, parson of 
Sanquhar, as chaplain of St. Nicholas, Newark, £40 yearly. 
(It was this Robert Chrichton who, in 1562, was committed to 
ward in Perth for having celebrated the mass in Sanquhar Parish 
Church.) Edward Lord Chrichton succeeded his brother ‘n 
1562, so that St. Nicholas Church must have been in existence 
then. 
TRACES OF THE BUILDING. 
Though all trace of the building is now gone on the surface, 
there is no doubt but that if excavations were made the founda- 
tions would be laid bare, for when the field was ploughed some 
time ago some large stones from the building were turned over. 
There are also many stones in the dykes around, which seem 
to have belonged to a building of some importance. In the 
roadside dyke at Castlemains were many sculptured stones, which 
were supposed to have come from the hospital, but these were 
removed about ten years ago to the Old Castle by the late 
Marquis of Bute. These stones did not seem to have belonged 
to the Castle, as no others like them were to be found on the 
building, nor were any found around except a few which had 
probably found their way there from the hospital also. There is 
also a finely carved head built into the wall of a house known as 
“The Ark’’ at the Townfoot. This is also thought to have 
come from Newark. A little while ago one of the stones from 
a Gothic window was dislodged by a flood, and now lies on the 
river-side beside the site of the institution. The writer of the 
statistical account of the parish of Sanquhar in 1793 says :— 
“Near the residence of the Rosses (Ryehill) there seems to have 
been a large pile of building, perhaps the Hospital of Senewhare, 
a religious foundation, though this cannot be ascertained. 
Several of the stones of a Gothic figure are built into the walls 
and windows of houses near where this edifice once stood. 
There is also in the open field a large font or rock basin. 
Human bones have been found in digging and ploughing up the 
