The Antiquaries Journal, 90, 2010,pp261–98 r The Society of Antiquaries of London, 2010 doi:10.1017⁄s0003581509990436. First published online 24 February 2010 SCOTTISH MEDIEVAL PARISH CHURCHES: THE EVIDENCE FROM THE DIOCESES OF DUNBLANE AND DUNKELD Richard Fawcett, FSA, Richard Oram, FSA, and Julian Luxford, FSA Richard Fawcett, FSA, School of Art History, University of St Andrews, 79 North Street, St Andrews KY16 9AL, UK. E-mail:
[email protected] Richard Oram, FSA, School of History and Politics, University of Stirling, Stirling FK94LA, UK. E-mail:
[email protected] Julian Luxford, FSA, School of Art History, University of St Andrews, 79 North Street, St Andrews KY16 9AL, UK. E-mail:
[email protected] The great majority of Scottish parish churches owe their present appearance to reconstructions carried out from the later eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. It was the view of the authors of this paper, however, that in many cases those reconstructions had been relatively superficial, and that medieval work might have survived under what could, in some cases, be little more than a modern veneer. To test this view, a survey was carried out of all medieval parish sites within the dioceses of Dunblane and Dunkeld. The findings from that survey are summarized in this paper. The loss of medieval parish churches in Scotland has been so great that there is a widely held view that too few survive for a detailed understanding of pre-Reformation parochial architecture to be reached. In a paper published in 1939, for example, it could be