Turriff Parish Church (Auld Kirk)

18th-century parish church on the site of a medieval predecessor, with the ruins of the older church alongside

In the historic core of the town, the parish church complex includes both the present 18th-century kirk and the substantial ruins of the medieval church it replaced. The medieval church, dedicated to St Congan, had been the parish church since the 13th century, and its surviving south wall and east gable form an evocative ruin in the kirkyard — one of the better visible fragments of medieval ecclesiastical architecture in the area.

Inside the present church, the painted heraldic Hatchments hanging on the walls — diamond-shaped boards commemorating the deaths of local lairds — are an interesting survival of a once-common Scottish funerary tradition. The graveyard contains a fine 16th-century carved table-tomb of the Barclay family of Towie. The churchyard is open at all times; the church itself is open for services and at advertised hours.

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