Signs from the A904 a couple of miles west of Queensferry and the south end of the Forth Road Bridge point visitors to Abercorn Church. The signs lead you to the tiny hamlet of Abercorn and to the walled drive leading to the gates of Abercorn Parish Church.
The church is instantly appealing. Your first view is of its south side, across a large churchyard surrounded by trees. The nave is largely obscured by a series of aisles projecting to the south, the most easterly of which gives a clear indication that at least some of the church is very old.
This is the Duddingston Aisle, which comes with a date of 1603 carved into its external wall. But it is all too easy to overlook a nearby indication that part of the church goes back much, much further. This is the blocked up doorway in the south wall of the church, immediately to the east of the Philipstoun burial enclosure. Complete with its understandably faded chevron decoration, the doorway has been dated to the 1100s, when it probably gave access to a small two celled church.