St Ternan, Arbuthnott
St Ternan, Arbuthnott
St Ternan’s Kirk, now Arbuthnott Parish Church, is a Category A medieval church beside the Bervie Water in Arbuthnott, Aberdeenshire. The nave and chancel survive from the thirteenth century; the two-storey Arbuthnott Aisle and west bell tower were added around 1500.
- Location
- Arbuthnott, Grampian
- Country
- Scotland
- County
- Grampian
- City / town
- Arbuthnott
- Address
- St Ternan, Arbuthnott, Grampian, AB30 1NA
- Postcode
- AB30 1NA
- Built
- 13th-century nave and chancel; Arbuthnott Aisle and west tower c.1500; restored 1896
- Architect
- A Marshall Mackenzie (1896 restoration)
- Denomination
- Church of Scotland
- Dedication
- Ternan
- Parish
- Arbuthnott, Bervie and Kinneff
- Grade
- Category A
- Style
- Medieval Gothic
- Materials
- Ashlar walls with strong buttresses to the aisle and tower
- Grid reference
- NO 801 746
- Opening hours
- Open daily.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas. Accessible toilets nearby. Accessible toilets in church
Overview
Historic Environment Scotland lists a thirteenth-century nave and chancel with a later west front and bell turret, and a late-fifteenth-century vaulted south aisle with stair turret. An inscription on the north chancel doorway records dedication to St Ternan in 1242. Sir Robert Arbuthnott built the aisle (formerly St Mary’s or the Lady Chapel, with a priest’s room above) and the west tower in about 1500, in well-cut ashlar with tall buttresses. The Arbuthnott Missal was written here and completed in 1491. Alexander Marshall Mackenzie restored the church in 1896 and fitted Daniel Cottier glass in the chancel lancets.
The kirkyard holds an effigy associated with Hugo de Arbuthnott and the grave of the novelist James Leslie Mitchell (Lewis Grassic Gibbon). The church is among the few pre-Reformation Scottish parish churches still in regular use, now in the linked parish of Arbuthnott, Bervie and Kinneff.