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Church, still in ecclesiastical use, and the remains of its predecessor. The old church was built in 1774, and the current church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was designed by William MacKenzie in 1839. The remains of the old church are still visible to the north of the present church. The church is depicted on the 1st edition OS map as a rectangular-plan church with a projection on the east elevation. It is within an L-plan graveyard, with a small rectangular structure to the north-west of the church within the angle of the graveyard enclosure. On the 2nd edition OS map, the graveyard has been expanded to the north. The rectangular structure has been removed, or moved, and there are five structures further to the north that are depicted as vaults. Current maps show the graveyard has been further extended to the south-west. The church is Gothic in style with an advanced tower and spire on the east elevation. It is constructed from stugged pink and cream sandstone courses with ashlar dressings that are mostly droved. There is a base course, chambered angles, crowstepped gables and a slate roof. The windows are shallow and pointed with Y-tracery and chamfered margins. The tower has a two-leaf panelled door surmounted by a fanlight. At the top stage, there is a pyramidal stone spire with flying buttresses at the angles. There is a damaged pre-Reformation stone font to the north of the tower. In the vestibule are a plaster cast of a circa 9th century stone depicting horsemen (found at Bullion Farm, Invergowrie, Dundee) and a profusely carved memorial stone dated 1742 to James Cocks of Locheye, his wife Isobel Doig and son William (removed from Dargie churchyard, in Perthshire, in 1914). Inside the church are the original pitch pine pews, a boarded dado and a horseshoe gallery with a panelled front, supported on timber columns, with a fluted octagonal section above the pews, panelled gallery front, and raised elongated bookrest at the east bearing set of shields depicting the lion rampart (for the Gray family) and an allegorical representation of naval victory of Camperdown (for the Duncan family). Other items within the church include a classical memorial to Alexander Watt (who died in 1851), an alms dish dated 1751, a manual and pedal organ by Alexander Young and Sons of Manchester dated 1880, with has the pump handle still intact, and a Second World War memorial. In the west gable there are two stained glass windows by J and W Guthrie of Glasgow, in memory of Rev John Wilson. The graveyard features mostly 19th and 20th century tombstones, and there is a cross in the graveyard extension to commemorate the consecration of the new burial ground, which was constructed in 1933 from stone taken from Hurly Hawkin to the west (NO33SW0007). There are also a number of cast-iron memorials. The graveyard is enclosed with rubble boundary walls that are saddleback-coped, with cast-iron railings to the east. A cast-iron gate is supported by ashlar gatepiers with shallow pyramidal caps. Within the graveyard, to the north-west of the church, is the Watt Webster memorial (category B-listed), built in 1809 by David Neave. It is constructed from polished ashlar, with rubble at the east, with rubble additions to the north. There are two Roman-Doric columns framed by a pair of antae, with swag decoration between the columns, a plain entablature and a block to the centre with reeded and inverted fan decoration, which formerly supported an urn finial. There are enclosing ashlar walls to the front. It was erected for Katharine Webster, wife of Isaac Watt of Logie, and to other Watts and Websters. There is also a memorial to James Martin White of Balruddy built against the east wall. In the north east corner of the graveyard is a hearse house dated 1876. It is single-storey and rectangular in plan, with its entrance doorway on the road side. It is built of stugged rubble with stugged ashlar dressings and a slate roof with a decorated cast iron finial on the gablehead and triangular skewputts on each gable end. Photographic recording of the hearse house was carried out in June 2019. Also in the graveyard is the Liff parish war memorial (NO33SW0112, category B-listed) erected in 1920. A photographic survey of the Watt Webster memorial was carried out in 2018 prior to proposed alterations and repairs.
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Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Angus
HER -
NO33SW0010 - LIFF PARISH CHURCH