| Monument to MARGARET WEDDERBURN, a sister of
ALEXANDER WEDDERBURN of Kingennie, Town Clerk of Dundee. PETER CLAYHILLS also
interred was for a long period a leading Burgess of Dundee
This monument was re-used as the base for No.851
The top photograph is fragments from the base of 851 which is
now lying further West of its original position, probably the result of a tree falling.
This is now totally ruined, but J.W.(John Wedderburn), in whose
time some of the sculpture and
inscription was still legible, has left a rough sketch and account of it,
according to which the
inscription, so far as it was then legible round the outer edge of the stone,
ran as follows :
—
.... Dormit Matrona omni virtute insignis Margareta Wedderburn conjunx viri
probissimi
Petri Clayhills.....
while within the border was this further inscription in the upper part of the
stone :—
. . . URBIS . . . OBIIT DIE XX , . . TEMBRIS ANNO AERAE CHRISTIANAE MDCXVII
AETATIS SUAE 55.
which must refer to Margaret Wedderburn. In one portion were sculptured the
Wedderburn and Clayhills arms, impaled, the latter being a bend sinister to
dexter,
charged with three buckles. The former is the usual coat, a cheveron between
three roses.
In the centre of the stone were two sculptured faces, and the letters P.C., M.W.,
and also
the letters W.D. and E.D." The illustration above is from a rubbing from the
stone
taken in 1891. It shows, however, a good deal of work not described by J.W.,
e.g., the
initials WW. and M.B., and the two figures above the arms.
Source: Wedderburn Book.
Here sleeps a matron illustrious for every virtue, Margaret
Wedderburn, wife of Peter Clayhills____ of this city, she died 20th September in
the year of the Christian era 1617, and of her age 55______ immortality.
Source: The Book of the Howff, ©Libraries, Leisure and Culture
Dundee, Local History Centre & is
reproduced with kind permission.
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