NS3975 : Gravestone in ruins of St Serf's church
taken 15 years ago, near to Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland

In his 1888 book, "The God's Acres of Dumbarton", local historian Donald MacLeod states that he had "ascertained that the small headstone with A. K. engraved on it marks the lowly bed of Ann Knox, a near relative of the Dixons, after whom, or after whose forbears, an at one time outlying but now inlying portion of the town was called Knoxland".
For that area, see NS4074 : Knoxland Square, and see NS4076 : Memorial to Robert Buchanan for a probable identification of this Ann Knox.
Only a couple of stones survive from the era before the Dixons; for one of them, see NS3975 : Gravestone in ruins of St Serf's Church. See the link in the previous paragraph for details of other stones within the ruins.
This was the ancient parish church for Cardross Parish. Its ruins are located in what is now Levengrove Park – Link – and some much later memorials for various members of the Dixon family (who were connected with Dumbarton's Glassworks) are now located within its walls. See Link (in a Geograph article) for further comments.
The lands of Levengrove were originally part of an area named Ferrylands, so called because, before Dumbarton Bridge was built in 1765, the River Leven was crossed by means of a ferry. John Dixon, a Dumbarton merchant, acquired Levengrove in 1805 from Richard Dennistoun of Kelvingrove (in Glasgow).
The Dixons built Levengrove House (demolished c.1880), whose former grounds make up much of what is now the park. In 1885, Levengrove Park, 32 acres in area, was gifted to the town of Dumbarton by Dr Peter Denny and John McMillan (son of local shipbuilder Archibald McMillan), the expense to them being £20,000.
The park contains the ruins of St Serf's Church – Link – anciently the parish church of Cardross. That church was at one time part of a cluster of buildings, a clachan, that is marked as "Little Kirktoun" on the Pont/Blaeu map of the Lennox. The ruined church was later used by the Dixon family as a burial place: see Link (in a Geograph article).
