Kirkgate Watchtower, Kinross

The old Burying Ground at the west end of Kirkgate Park was also the location for the Parish Church until 1743 when a replacement was built on the High Street. This was one of four early places of worship around the Loch which were associated with St Serf’s Priory on one of the islands in the middle of the Loch. The earliest surviving headstone in the Graveyard is dated 1690. The Watchtower was constructed on the site of an earlier building in 1852, at the same time that the original oval medieval burying ground was extended in a rectangular shape towards the West, formerly it probably served as a lookout to guard against the ‘Resurrection Men’.