In our research of the Colville history, we had come upon a site that was the Crombie Parish, supported by the Abbey of Culross. Just a few short miles down the road from Culross is a village named Crombie. This Parish was turned over to the Colvilles - never found an exact date for that - probably in the 1500's. The Parish is a ruin now, and most of the grave stones are unreadable due to erosion, but it is in the Historic Scotland protection and plans are underway to try and restore the old head stones. The directions to this place were not very clear. I had a map, which showed a small country road veering off of the main 'highway' between Culross and Crombie, and it depicted a sign for a school just past the place we were to turn off. So, we started out in search of this Parish ruin after we ate dinner at Red Lion Inn in Culross! Here are pictures of Red Lion Inn.
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Paintings on the ceiling - notice in Scotland, whisky
spelling does not contain the e.... |
Now, on our way to find the Colville gravesite, Old Crombie Parish. As we drove along the highway, looking for some small country road, we did pass a sign for school crossing. I kind of wondered then if maybe we had gone too far, so we turned onto the next country road we found, thinking we would just drive up and down these country roads until we found 'something'. Thank heavens it stays light outside until well past 10:00, or this never would have been possible!! Well, we came upon an older gentleman and his wife out walking their dog. I sure wish I had gotten their picture!! We stopped and asked them if they had heard of Old Crombie Parish. The gentleman immediately knew of what we were talking about!! He said his parents were buried in that cemetery!! Imagine the luck of finding such an informed person, out walking his dog!! Actually, he said it was his daughter's dog they were keeping while she was away on vacation!! At any rate, he immediately began to tell us about the location, after I explained that I was a Colville and we were trying to track down our family history. He also was very familiar with the Colville name and told us to be sure and go to Culross as that was a prominent name there. We told him we had just come from Culross!! He explained in great detail how we had missed the turn, so to go back up the highway and turn onto the country road at the 'bottom of the hill' where there was a sign for Crombie Point. We were to drive down that road a few miles, but where it curved to the left, we were not to make that curve. Instead, we were to pull over, park our car, and walk down the gravel path and we would find it off to our left. After he carefully explained all this, he then asked if we had any paper with us and he would draw us a 'map'. We gave him our tablet and he sketched all this out. What wonderful people! He really knew what he was talking about! We followed his directions, found where the road curved to the left, parked our car and got out and started walking!! What an amazing find!! They had said, where the cemetery is on the left, on the right is a wooden fence. Yep! Right there!! We went through the iron gates, searched headstones, saw what was left of the Parish, went inside the Parish walls and there they were!! We found two head stones that clearly had the Colville name on them!! Pictures include the scenery from the highway, the gravel path we walked and entrance into the cemetery as well as numerous headstones that were too weathered to read names and of course, the Colville headstones!
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| Here is that wooden fence the gentleman described! |
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...and here is the gate into the old cemetery! For me, it was breath-taking -
to think we had actually found this site! |
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| The 2 Colville head stones. Here above, and the one here below. |
Time to leave Crombie and Culross....and go back to our Glasgow cottage! What a day! We started out Sunday, July 6, and headed down to Douglas Castle, over to Hadrian's Wall, on east to Alnwick Castle then to Berwick-upon-Tweed for the night. On Monday, we headed to Edinburgh, Culross and finished up at Crombie. Yep, time to head back to Glasgow! Tuesday will be a day to catch up on places we didn't get to in our schedule!
