James Hogg’s Gravestone

O lone St Mary of the waves, 

 In ruin lies thine ancient aisle, 

While o’er thy green and lowly graves 

 The moorcocks bay, and plovers wail 

When James Hogg wrote this description of the ruined churchyard that overlooks St Mary’s Loch, you hope he never thought that a similar fate might in due course be waiting for his own grave in Ettrick Kirkyard.

He’d have reckoned without the ravages of time, as well as the Scottish Borders Council’s programme of headstone testing. Shortly before Scotland went into lockdown, the Selkirk-based newspaper the Southern Reporter described the ‘shock’ that Ettrick residents had felt when James’s headstone had been laid flat. The paper’s photo eloquently shows the result.

According to the Borders Council’s website, their programme of testing is essential to make sure that anyone who visits or works in their 154 cemeteries is safe. If their staff find safety concerns, the memorial concerned will be made safe by socketing into the ground or laying flat. That’s what has happened to James’s headstone, along with nearly fifty others in Ettrick Kirkyard.

And the same thing has happened with the gravestone of James’s wife Margaret. Margaret is buried in Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh, alongside the couple’s eldest son James and their eldest daughter Margaret Phillips. Like a number of other monuments in this historic cemetery, their stone has also been declared unsafe and laid flat.

Gravestone of Margaret Hogg, James Hogg (Jr.), and Margaret Phillips.
Photograph by Robin MacLachlan

However the story will not end there. A band of Hogg enthusiasts, including the James Hogg Society, is actively planning to have both stones reinstated. Hopefully, the work can be completed before James Hogg’s 250th anniversary is out, and his gravestone will once again be standing proud, as it was when this photo was taken.

Gravestone of James Hogg.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Watch this space for further news.

--Robin MacLachlan