Sites and Monument Record: Black Aggie's Grave (SMR 532)

Description
A small walled family graveyard on Bonnyhill Farm beside the Rowantree Burn. The Rev John Reid, 1st minister of the Laurieston Macmillianite Church is buried there and is commemorated on a fallen gravestone. The mortared stone walls are an advanced state of decay. They stand inside a wooded copse enclosed by the remnants of a low mortared stone wall. An entrance gate to the outer enclosure lay in the NW corner.
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Object detail

Site type
Site
burial
Site history notes
On 1st June 1797 Rev John Reid married Helen Stark whose father, John Stark, owned Bonnyhill Farm. As a dissenting minister he preferred to be buried away from the burial grounds of the establishment. Three members of the family died during an epidemic - on the 18th Nov 1819 John and Margaret Reid were buried at Bonnyhill, and seven days later they were joined by John? Reid. Rev Reid himself died in an accident in December 1820 and was placed in the family tomb. When his wife died she joined him, as did their daughters Elizabeth Helen, Mary Stark, and Anabella Stark.
A tradition has their coloured maid, Aggie, buried with them - hence the name. Helen Stark was the widow of Archibald Currie of the City of Richmond in the USA and may well have brought a coloured slave back with her.
Site conservation date
1819
Site grid ref
NS 8392 7862
Conservation status
Georgian

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