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Art Nouveau gravestone

A beautiful Art Nouveau in Whitekirk graveyard.

Although the village is called Whitekirk, the church (kirk) is red sandstone, the original kirk was made of limestone & was white. The current kirkis 15th Century & was very important in medieval times.

"Located in the hamlet of Whitekirk, south of North Berwick, north of Dunbar - is the 15th Century red sandstone structure which is the Parish Church of St. Mary.
Whitekirk was an important mediaeval centre of pilgrimage when a nearby well was pronounced to have healing qualities around 1300. A shrine to Our Lady of Haddington was constructed. The original Church structure at Whitekirk was a 12th Century parish church, under the jurisdiction of Holyrood Abbey. However, in 1413 around 16,000 pilgrims came to Whitekirk and King James I placed the Whitekirk under his personal protection and built hostels to shelter the
growing numbers of pilgrims.
In 1435, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II, walked barefoot through the snow from Dunbar to give thanks at Whitekirk Church for his survival of a storm in the Firth of Forth while coming on a mission to Scotland."

It was burnt by the suffragettes in 1914, but was restored.

The gravestone appears to be of the Hon. Ellen Stuart who was born in 1846 & died in 1927. She married Sir David Baird of Newbyth who fought in the Kaffir War between 1851 and 1852, the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. He succeeded to the title of 3rd Baronet Baird, of Newbyth in 1852.

I love the decoration on the gravestone, very unusual in this area, and a fine example of the late art nouveau/ early art deco period.