About
Beside a farmyard 2 miles south of Inverurie stand the walls of Kinkell Church, a simple rectangular church of the 1200s that was once the mother church of a parish with chapels at Dyce, Kintore, Kemnay, Skene and beyond. It was linked with the Knights Hospitallers from the 1300s until 1420, when its revenues passed to Aberdeen Cathedral. Its rector Alexander Galloway, a canon of the cathedral, paid for a carved sacrament house in 1524, which survives with its Latin inscription, Here is preserved the body which was born of a virgin, and angels holding the monstrance. He also gave a crucifixion panel and a figure of St Michael; the panel is now a bronze replica of 1934, as the originals are lost. After the parish merged with Keithhall in 1771 the church was abandoned and partly pulled down to build a new one. Inside the walls is the finely carved grave slab of a knight. It can be tricky to find, with limited space to pull in.
Check today’s timesSee all times
- Kinkell ChurchOpen all year; an unstaffed open site, no hours published
Opening times may change at short notice.
Historic Scotland: 'Kinkell Church is free to visit and open year-round.' No hours, closures or notices on 21 October 2026.
The roofless church stands in a small kirkyard beside a farm. Inside are the carved sacrament house of 1524 on the north wall and a finely carved grave slab showing a knight; information boards explain them. The crucifixion panel seen today is a bronze replica of 1934. No toilets or other facilities.
Photo: The roofless granite rubble walls of Kinkell Church under a large beech tree, with gravestones on the grass of the kirkyard. PaulT (Gunther Tschuch), CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kinkell_Church_01.jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.
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