80 CuurRcH oF St. JoHN THE Baptist, DALRY. 
Chalmers and others give partial notes of many subsequent 
visits to St. Ninian’s shrine, by King James IV., notably in the 
year 1506-1507, when in March he made a pilgrimage on foot, 
and in the following July, in company with the Queen, made a 
journey in state, which, in going and returning, took a full month 
to accomplish. 
Notes on the Record-History of St. John’s Church. 
It is extremely probable that the early history of the Church 
of St. John merges in that of the Harlston Barony, with which, 
through all the many changes in the proprietorship, it is so invari- 
ably associated. 
Many such changes must have preceded the earliest owner- 
ship with which the registers of the great seal make us acquainted, 
when in 1511, just two years before both donor and grantee fell 
on the fatal field of Flodden, King James IV., calling to memory 
the many arduous and faithful services of the deceased Patrick 
Hepburne, Earl of Bothwell, concedes to and confirms his son 
Adam in all the wide ranging possessions of his father, including 
the lands and barony of Erliston, with the patronage of the church 
of Dalry. 
Nearly seventy years after, we find King James VI. at Stir- 
line Castle confirming, in relation to the Church of St. John, a 
still more important document. It is a charter granted by Master 
John Hepburne, rector of the Parish Church of Dalry, whereby, 
for the sum of £100 paid in those turbulent times, he, with con- 
sent of James, Harl of Bothwell, Lord Halis and Liddesdaill, &c., 
the patron of the said rectory, in feu ferme set to John Hepburne, 
the son of his brother, Patrick, Bishop of Moray, his heirs and 
assignees, the glebe and church lands of Dalry, with the garden, 
houses, buildings (occupied by Fergus Achannane) lying on the 
west side of the “torrent” of St. John’s Clachan (between 
Erlistonn on the north and Grinean on the south) paying to the 
said rector 14 merks (ancient duty) and 13 shillmgs and 4 pence 
of augmentation; also doubling the feu-duty on the entry of 
heirs; requiring also that there be built and maintained on the 
said lands suitable conveniences for lodging the said rector and 
his successors, with their servants and horses, at their own ex- 
pense, whenever they should happen to stay there. In this 
document we have a wonderfully minute description of the 
