242 REPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1900 



OLDHAMSTOCKS CHURCH. 



A description of the church of Oldhamstocks and its more 

 noteworthy features was contributed by Dr Hardy to the 

 Club's Proceedings for 1878 (pp. 407-8), and it is only 

 needful to supplement it by a few additional particulars. 

 By far the most interesting portion of the structure is the 

 Hepburn burial aisle, adjoining the east gable. It occupies 

 the site of the old chancel; and possibly the walls, the 

 vaulting, which is semicircular, and even to some extent the 

 roof, which is composed of overlapping stone slabs, may bo 

 original. The entrance doorway in the south wall is an 

 insertion of the seventeenth or early eighteenth century. 

 The most striking feature is the pointed and traceried 

 window in the east wall. It is no doubt ancient, and 

 may date from the beginning or middle of the sixteenth 

 century. The tracery, which forms three lights, with cusped 

 heads in the lower half of the window, and three quatrefoils 

 of elongated form in the upper part, is of a different stone 

 from the rest of the building, and is somewhat rude in 

 execution, but the general effect is not displeasing. The 

 monials are much wasted, as are also the roughly sculptured 

 heads which form the terminations of the label above. The 

 window is about 4| feet wide at the sill, the height to 

 the apex being nearly 8 feet 4 inches. The aisle itself 

 measures externally about 20 feet by 17 feet 8 inches. 

 (Plate XL) 



Drawings of the heraldic panels inserted on each side of 

 the window will be found on Plates XII. and XIII. The 

 shield on the south side is divided %)er /ess, instead of per 

 pale, which is not a usual arrangement. The initials T.H., 

 and M.S., are probably those of Thomas Hepburn, rector of 

 Oldhamstocks, at the time of the Eeformation — of whom some 

 account is given in the extracts of Scott's Fasti below — and of 

 Margaret Sinclair, his wife. They are undoubtedly original, 

 but this cannot be said of the date, 1581, incised on the 

 lower part of the stone, which is a later and probably 

 quite modern addition. The panel on the north side 

 bears, per pale, the arms of Thomas Hepburn, one of the 

 Hepburns of Blackcastle, who was parson of Oldhamstocks 



