Watch House, Old Parish Church, Dyce

This small gabled building is located in the eastern corner of the graveyard surrounding the historical Old Parish Church of Dyce. It dates to the early 19th century and was built to accomodate a night watchman to keep guard over newly-interred burials from the so-called body-snatchers, who stole corpses for medical research. Most famous in Edinburgh, this activity took place in Aberdeen too and flourished for a short period in the early 19th century. 

The building is a small, rectangular, single-roomed structure, built using large blocks of granite and with a slate roof. There are two small rectangular windows in the west face, now blocked, and a rectangular door in the south gable. The building is now used as a general store for gardening and grave digging. The building itself was never a place of worship but is associated with the historical church and graveyard of Dyce, which was an important Pictish place of worship too.