Broughton Graveyard

We visited another graveyard today, this time the one in Broughton, approx. 20 minutes or so down the road.
The graveyard is still in use although the church (originally dedicated to St. Maurice, a 2nd C. martyr) has long been a ruin. By the side of the ruin there is a barrel vaulted cell (you're looking straight at it in the picture above) which is reputed to be the cell of St. Llolan, who is supposed to have established a church on this spot after travelling here from the Candida Casa, St. Ninian's settlement in Whithorn. It has been restored by the architect James Grieve.
On the other hand in the Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Peeblesshire it says that it is more likely to be an old burial aisle. I favour the more romantic version of the saint.
Broughton Graveyard has everything you could wish for in a graveyard, an elevated lovely location, a wealth of yew trees, a ruined church and a mysterious cell. And what with the falling leaves and the low hanging mist, what more could your ask?

This is the door to the reputed cell of St. Llolan, which you can visit by borrowing the key from the shop in Broughton, although not on Sunday as we discovered!

This interesting arrangement of an angel's head, lyre and poetry book is to be found on the grave monument for the Reverend Hamilton Paul, late minister of the United church of Broughton, Glenholm and Kilbucho, who died on the 28th Feb 1854 at the age of 80. He had been minister there for 40 years. His brother Montgomery (died 13th March 1846, aged 75) is also buried there. Apparently the Reverend who was born in Ayrshire was a friend of Robert Burns (hence perhaps the poetry book?!).

The above gravestone is not all that remarkable but I was struck by the verse on it. The full text reads:

Erected to the memory of Janet Alston, infant daughter of James Alston, who died in Broughton on the 19th Jan. 1840, aged 1 year

This lovely bud so young and fair

called home by early doom

just came to show how sweet a flower

in Paradise should bloom.

The said James Alston who died at Hyndford Wells on the 11th April 1861, aged 55 years. Also Isabella Noble, his spouse, who died December 23rd 1863, aged 55 years.

Although I'm not as interested in Victorian gravestones as I am in the very old ones this was a particularly lovely angel so could not resist capturing her in a picture. Her position high up on a pedastal and almost into the branches of the nearby tree, adds to her beauty.

A last look back at the ruin of the church of which only the East gable is still standing with the adjoining portion of the North and South walls. Above however the bellfry is still there, with the bell inside. The graveyard is still in use today although the more recent graves are in an adjoining field, next to the old graveyard.