Carved Sandstone Head

Today's the day ........................ to lay to rest

I went up to the Dig for a couple of hours this afternoon, to help David to put down the membrane (see extra) in the trenches, before they all get filled in on Friday.

And then it will be hard to imagine that there ever was a great Abbey Church, founded in 1218, and a community of monks in the white robes of the Premonstratensian Order, going about their daily lives.  I know that by the 1530s, the abbey is described as being in a 'ruinous state'  and that over the course of the next 500 years, its finely worked stones were taken to build all sorts of other dwellings in the area.  But you would think that something more substantial would have been left above ground?

The carved sandstone head shown above is in The Stewartry Museum in Kirkcudbright.  It is thought to be from an architectural feature on the external walls of one of the Tongland Abbey buildings.  Just a tiny fragment to hint at how it might have been ...................