IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Culsalmond, INSCH, AB52 6UL

Looking over fields at dusk (mid afternoon) towards oncoming lights on a nearby road. I like the name, although given the 40% pay cut I have just had, I would settle for Culrussell.

The old church of Culsalmond was built in 1791 and abandoned in 1938. The fine bell tower dates from the 17th century. In the kirkyard there is an old mort house and a watch house designed to protect the newly dead from the body snatchers who supplied the anatomy schools in Aberdeen.

The building in the background is the old manse. The building in the foreground was built in the early 1800s to deter the activities of grave robbers who stole bodies for sale to the anatomy schools in Aberdeen. The upper part of the building is a watch house where the men guarding new graves could find shelter. Below, there is an immensely strong vault or morthouse in which fresh bodies were stored under lock and key until too corrupt to be of interest to the anatomists. They were then buried in the normal way.

The old kirk of Culsalmond with its kirkyard seen from the east.

Built ca. 1791 and abandoned in 1937, when the parish church was relocated to the former Free Church a few hundred metres to the south-west. The ruin, which is now fenced off for safety reasons, is A-listed, largely for its ornate 17th Century bellcote. The bell is said to have migrated to Keithhall and Kinkell Kirk: http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4978187 .

The old kirkyard at Culsalmond from the south-east,

The west gable of the old kirk of Culsalmond and its empty bell tower. Built in 1791 this church was abandoned in 1937, the west end lies in one grid square and the east in another.

A derelict old stable block at Kirkton Farm.

Buildings at the bottom of Culsalmond Brae, apparently an old schoolhouse and school. A small crossroad is at the right the A920 crossing two minor roads.

Seen from Culsalmond cemetery.