An excavation at the church of the Blackfriars, Stirling

Page, R. and Page, C. and Black, S. M. (1996) An excavation at the church of the Blackfriars, Stirling. Glasgow Archaeological Journal, 20. pp. 103-112. ISSN 0305-8980

Abstract

Part of what was suspected to be the south wall of the Blackfriars Church, destroyed in June 1559, was revealed in 1904 during the construction of the present No 64 Murray Place in Stirling. Permission was given by the present owners of the property to excavate in the garden behind the tenement to see if further traces could be found. By following mortar deposits and stone fragments the outline of a further 13.5m of robbed out south wall, an apparently semicircular apsidal eastern wall and part of the north wall were traced. The total known length of the church is therefore 27.5m, and the internal width 6.5m, with walls 1.5m thick. The greater part of a female skeleton was found just outside the south wall, accompanied by some bones of two infants, and several hundred widely scattered bone fragments. Some pottery was also found, of various dates back to about the thirteenth century.