Building record MAB36425 - DUNNICHEN CHURCH

Former church, probably built on the site of earlier churches, no longer in ecclesiastical use.

A Dunnichen church is recorded in the foundation charter of Aberbrothoc Abbey as a gift by William I in 1178. The church was dedicated to St. Constantine.

The present church was built in 1802 by George Dempster, the 18th Century agricultural improver who built the nearby village of Letham. The session house was added in 1883. It was closed as a church in 2011. It is a small Gothic oblong building, constructed of rubble masonry with ashlar margins and slate roofs, with a ball-finialled belfry - dated 1802. The four-bay south facing flanking elevation has four pointed-headed windows with lattice glazing. The north facing elevation has no windows. The east gable has a double-leafed central doorway with a pointed fanlight, and a pointed-headed window with lattice glazing above. Above this is a small rectangular louvred opening. The western gable is of a similar design, but with the later addition of a single-storey porch and vestry, with a double-leafed door and a lattice glazed window on the south facing elevation, and a similar central window on the west elevation. It has a large, corniced end stack on the west gable. The church’s interior fittings include a horse-shoe shaped gallery covering the north, west, and east walls.

Within the churchyard are two Commonwealth war graves, of Sgt. David Mart (died July 1917) and Air Mechanic J. A. Smith (died April 1919). A communion table with First and Second World War dedicatory plaques bearing the inscription: 'DUNNICHEN PARISH CHURCH TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LOVING MEMORY OF THOSE WHO FELL IN THE GREAT WAR 1914- 1919.' and 'ALSO IN LOVING MEMORY OF THOSE WHO FELL IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR 199-1945' is now in Letham UF church (MAB36454).

GUARD were commissioned by the Dunnichen Heritage Society to undertake a ground penetrating radar survey within the church in 2008 with the aim of prospecting for evidence of an earlier, pre-Reformation church on the same site, and to determine whether or not burials might exist beneath floor levels of the present building. The survey revealed no significant anomalies, which might indicate the presence of burials beneath the floor of the church, although the circumstances encountered within the church mean the potential for sub-floor burials still cannot be entirely ruled out. The wooden floor consists of boards running east-west, supported by cross beams running north-south, overlying a concrete or stone sub-floor, with an air gap in between causing echoes. Due to the problems experienced, it is not clear if buried remains of an earlier structure exist below the present structure, but it was concluded that it is unlikely that any remains survive.

A standing building survey of the church was carried out by Rathmell Archaeology in June 2017 prior to conversion to a dwelling.

MAGUIRE, D., 2008, DUNNICHEN CHURCH GPR SURVEY, Report (Bibliographic reference). SAB4608.

GPR Survey

ATKINSON, N, 2008, DUNNICHEN PARISH CHURCH (Bibliographic reference). SAB5545.

ARCHAEOLOGY SCOTLAND, 2009, DISCOVERY & EXCAVATION IN SCOTLAND, VOL 9, 2008, p.31 (Bibliographic reference). SAB3496.

RATHMELL ARCHAEOLOGY, 2017, DUNNICHEN PARISH CHURCH, ANGUS: ARCHAEOLOGICAL MITIGATION: WRITTEN SCHEME OF INVESTIGATION, WSI (Bibliographic reference). SAB3100.

RATHMELL ARCHAEOLOGY, 2018, DUNNICHEN CHURCH, ANGUS: ARCHAEOLOGICAL MITIGATION, L1 SBS (Bibliographic reference). SAB3155.

Record last edited

Jul 22 2026 6:05PM