Gravestone of John Kippen

Image: © Lairich Rig Taken: 8 Jul 2013

There is now little to be seen on the stone by way of an inscription, but this lair marker has some significance in the history of the burial ground: John Kippen was the first person to apply for burial here at Inverkip Street. As George Williamson writes in his "Old Greenock" (Second Series, 1888), "many of the leading inhabitants were buried in this ground. The first applicant was Bailie John Kippen, and after him Bailies Anderson, Fullarton, and Robertson, and at a later period Bailie Roger Stewart". The stone is near the north-eastern corner of the Inverkip Street burial ground. The Anderson and Fullarton lair markers are located nearby, though other members of their respective families have memorials elsewhere in the ground (the memorials for Bailie Roger Stewart and his family are at the other end of the burial ground: there, a pink granite tablet and some adjacent shields are set on the southern wall, close to the opening that leads to the adjoining Duncan Street Burial Ground). The inscription on John Kippen's gravestone is too worn to allow his year of death and his age to be read from it (for that reason, his date of death and his age are given only as 2.3.181- and 7- in the MI records – see the end-note), but he died in 1818, aged 75.

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