Kirkton of Airlie

Cairn: OS Reference Number – NO 32021 52100

Also Known As:

Battle Cairn
Canmore 32360
Cantsmill
St. Madden’s Knowe

St Medan's Knowe, from the W — St Medan’s Knowe, from the W

At Kirkton of Airlie, park next to the church and walk north eastwards along the track, past the houses Crabra and Cleikheim, and cross the burn by the small bridge and the mound will be seen ahead of you in the field.

Archaeology & History

A largely flat topped, rectangular mound, measuring, according to Canmore, 28 metres by 22 metres, 2.2 metres high on the west side and about ½ metre high on the east side. There is a quantity of rubble strewn on the top among which are two stone slabs, described in 1958 as being possible cist cover stones. The site has clearly suffered considerable disturbance.

The site highlighted in red on the 1865 6" OS Map. — The site highlighted in red on the 1865 6″ OS Map.

Andrew Jervise, writing of the site in 1864 described it as having been 300′ in circumference and 6-7′ high before the owner started to remove it for agricultural ‘improvements’ around 1859. He described it as being sometimes known as the ‘Battle Cairn’. As part of the demolition of the mound, agricultural workers in October 1859 unearthed a large cinerary urn half filled with human bones and protected by a large sandstone flag. Jervise writes:

“After the urn was found, care was taken removing other parts of the hillock; and on further reducing the surface, the top of a large boulder was exposed, upon and around which the mass of loose stones and earth appear to have been raised which composed the mound. The boulder, as far as ascertained, measures about 6 by 7½ feet; and the urn was found about four feet to the north east of the stone. At the distance of about four yards from the spot where the urn was found, there appeared to be a separate circle, rudely constructed of stones and earth – stones predominating. In this circle, at pretty regular distances, deposits of human and animal bones were found; and each of these deposits appeared to have been protected by two flat stones set up in a triangular form, resembling (an inverted letter V)…none of the deposits was more than 8″ below the surface”. In February 1861, “..a stone cist was found a little to the south east of the boulder….it was 5 feet long by 2 in breadth. The lid, a single slab, was upwards of 6 feet in length…the depth of the cist was 2 feet….It was nearly empty, but one could see, from the soft, black, unctuous earth that was taken out of it, that it had contained a body.”

Jervise continues:

“The name of St. Medan’s Knowe is certainly significant, but, whether it would imply that the place had been that of his burial, or one of those of his ministry, and so been the original place of worship at Airlie – are interesting particulars upon which history and tradition are silent”.

The Ordnance Survey Name Books, and the 25-inch OS map of 1865 record the finding, 20 yards to the west of the knowe, of a bronze spear head, which was at that time in the possession of a Mr Dixon, a merchant of Kirriemuir, which may go some way to explaining the alternative name of the site as ‘Battle Cairn’. The Name Books further record the testimony of a William Duncan that, ‘there have been 7 or 8 stone coffins and an urn found in the knowe, and that he believes a number more might be found if sought for, as the half of it is not yet excavated‘.

From the surviving evidence, it is very likely that Kirkton of Airlie was the centre of a cult of St. Madden (also known as ‘Medan’ and ‘Madan’), with the adjacent Holy Well, the (now destroyed) hamlet of St. Madden’s, and a Dewar’s land occupied by the hereditary custodians of St. Madden’s Bell. This site has no connection with St Medan’s Well at nearby Kirkton of Kingoldrum, that St Medan probably being a St Medana.

References:

Andrew Jervise, Notice of Antiquities in the Parish of Airlie, Forfarshire, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, June 1864.
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, The Archaeological Sites & Monuments of Central Angus, Angus District, Tayside Region, HMSO: Edinburgh 1983.
Scotland’s Place Names

Holy Well: OS Grid Reference – NO 3179 5188

Also Known as:

Canmore ID 32367
St. Madan’s Well
St. Medan’s Well

Getting Here

One of the present issues of St. Madden's spring looking south. — One of the present issues of St. Madden’s spring looking south.

At Kirkton of Airlie, park next to the church and walk north eastwards along the track, past the houses ‘Crabra’ and ‘Cleikheim’ and the spring that once supplied the Holy Well will be seen on the opposite side of the burn in a small fenced off enclosure. To the north east of the enclosure is a small hillock known as St Medan’s Knowe.

Archaeology & History

According to the Ordnance Survey Name Books, St Madden’s Well was located in a hamlet called St Maddens, which has since been almost entirely destroyed. In the mid nineteenth century a number of stone coffins and pottery were recovered from around the site, and the well was described as,

“filled up and defaced, the spring…still to be seen issuing into the mouth of a covered drain that was made some few years ago”.

There are now two issues of water from the spring, while nothing now remains of the original well housing. An adjoining resident informed me that the local landowner had gone to some trouble to try to find any evidence of the well housing, but had found nothing.

St. Madden's Well highlighted in red on the 1865 6" OS Map. — St. Madden’s Well on 1865 Map

As is often the case with these early mediaeval Scottish saints there is some confusion as to St Madden’s identity. To some writers his Saint’s day is accepted to be April 29th, and he has been identified as Saint Middanus, abbot of the monastery of Holywood, but Bishop Alexander Forbes considers he is more likely to have been a Bishop Medanach listed in the Dunkeld Litany.

To confuse things even more, J.M. MacKinlay (1904) wrote:

“The Hamlet of St Madden’s or St Medan’s in the parish of Airlie, where are also St Medan’s Well and St Medan’s Knowe, probably retains the name of St Modan, believed to have been a contemporary of St. Ronan. Skene says: ‘Modan appears in the Scotch calendars as an abbot on the fourth February, and as a bishop on the fourteenth November; but the dedications to him are so much mixed up together that it is probable that the same Modan is meant for both'”.

Andrew Jervise provides the following quote about St Medan:

“..bishop and confessor whose feast is held on 14th November was in great favour with King Conran c.503 – Coll. for Aberdeen and Banff.”

Whosoever St Madden was, his quadrangular bell was the subject of an extant fifteenth century deed whereby the bell with its appurtenant parcel of land was granted to the Countess of Moray as dewar (hereditary keeper of a Holy Relic with appurtenant land), together with “the infeftment being completed by (the Countess) being shut up in a house and then receiving the feudal symbols of earth and stone.” On the death and subsequent disposal of the estate of the last dewar in the nineteenth century, the bell was sold along with a load of rubbish, its true identity and value not being realised at the time.

References:

Andrew Jervise, The History and Traditions of the Land of the Lindsays, Edinburgh, Sutherland & Knox 1853.
Andrew Jervise, Epitaphs and Inscriptions from Burial Grounds and Old Buildings in the North East of Scotland, Edinburgh, Edmonston and Douglas 1875.
James Murray MacKinlay, Influence of the Pre-Reformation church on Scottish Place-Names, Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood and Sons 1904.
Dom Michael Barrett, A Calendar of Scottish Saints, Fort Augustus 1919.
Bishop Alexander Forbes, Kalendars of Scottish Saints, Edinburgh, Edmonston and Douglas 1872.
Scotland’s Place Names
Andrew Jervise, Notice of Antiquities in the Parish of Airlie, Forfarshire, in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, June 1864

Tag: Kirkton of Airlie

St. Medan's Knowe, Kirkton of Airlie, Angus

St. Madden’s Well, Kirkton of Airlie, Angus