Who would live in a Kirk?

[chinakay]

Hi everyone! I'm not getting anywhere with this on the Internet...both Kirk and Tenant are proper names and that's all that come up...Kirk Somebody and Somebody Tenant and their football scores :-(

So the question...why would there be tenants at a kirk? I have a James Rollo apparently domiciled in St Ninian's Kirk at Saint Ninian's near Stirling in the mid 1600s. He's a maltman, busy turning barley into whiskey :-) and he offered the local laird one eighth of a penny for "communication of trade", again living at the kirk apparently.

Any ideas?
Thanks,
China

[GR2]

Throughout the whole of Scotland it was common for a few houses to spring up beside the parish kirk. Few parishes do not have a place called Kirkton. Sometimes the kirk itself has gone, but the name remains. If a record states that someone lived at the kirk, it means in the kirkton, not in the kirk itself. It was common for tradesmen, such as shoemakers to settle at the kirkton.

[Skoosh]

I think this was the kirk where the Jacobites stored gunpowder in the '45 and it blew up.

Skoosh

[chinakay]

Thank you GR, that makes perfect sense.

Exactly right Skoosh, and the tower was restored but not the rest. If I can trace anybody in my bunch back that far it will make a wonderful story!

Cheers,
China

[Forfarian]

He's a maltman, busy turning barley into whiskey :-)

If he's in Scotland, he's turning it into whisky, not whiskey! The spelling with 'e' is reserved for the Irish and North American variety - in Scotland, there is no 'e' in whisky

[chinakay]

Oh, I do beg your pardon...I stand corrected

[Treetotal]

It's all Scotch to me 
Carol

[Forfarian]

It's all Scotch to me 

Not to me, however. I would never use the word 'Scotch' to mean whisky*. I might order a dram, or a whisky or (far more likely) specify a particular malt whisky.

*I might use it as an adjective to describe Scotch whisky, a Scotch egg, a Scotch mist or just possibly a Scotch thistle (by which I would mean a thistle native to Scotland, not the introduced non-native Onopordum acanthium, which is what you would get if you went to a garden centre and asked for a Scotch Thistle).

[Treetotal]

It was a play on words really  I never touch the stuff.
Carol