This church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, has a splendid
situation, standing high above the cliffs overlooking the sea, and
having a small fishing village on the beach immediately below. The
building is now a ruin, only the walls remaining. It is a curious
looking structure and
[Illustration: FIG. 1544.--Gamrie Church. Plan.]
has been built at two periods. The east end is the earliest part. The
total length of the church internally (Fig. 1544) is about 94 feet 4
inches by 15 feet 6 inches wide. The later part of the structure is
about 10 inches wider than the earlier, the walls being thinner. The
external dimensions are 96 feet long by 21 feet 8 inches wide. The
chancel or east end was probably heightened at the time when the west
end was built. The east gable has a sett-off at the level of what was
apparently the original height (Fig. 1545). There are two doors on the
south side, that in the chancel being lintelled and having a hole for a
sliding bar, while the other in the nave is round arched, as is also a
door in the opposite wall. These doors have all beaded mouldings. There
is only one window on the north side. On the south side the windows are
of various sizes, and are scattered about in an irregular way. Two of
them, which are placed high in the wall, are checked for outside
shutters; the others have all simple splays.
[Illustration: FIG. 1545.--Gamrie Church. View from South-East.]
There is a plain ambry in the east wall at a high level, and adjoining
it in the north wall there is a recess, probably a _credence_, as
suggested by the Rev. Dr. Pratt.[235] This part of the building is in a
neglected condition, being fitted up as a toolhouse for the
gravedigger’s implements. There is built into the interior of the east
gable a memorial tablet, with very quaintly carved letters and
mouldings, to the memory of Patricius Barclay dominus de Tolly, and his
wife, Joneta Ogilvy, who died in 1547.[236] There were other interesting
memorials connected with the church which are referred to by Dr. Pratt,
but of these only mutilated fragments remain. The indignant remonstrance
of the Rev. Dr. against the condition of the building, written thirty
years ago, backed up by a poem by Principal Geddes, has not availed to
secure any respect for the old walls.
The Church of Gamrie is frequently referred to in the twelfth and
following centuries. It was granted by William the Lion to Arbroath
between 1189 and 1198,[237] and in 1513 Mr. Henry Preston was presented
to the Church of Gamrie by the Abbot of Arbroath. Probably the existing
walls were erected about the latter date, but the details indicate that
great alterations have been made on the building, which convert it into
a seventeenth century structure.