Strathlachlan Parish Church

This church, which serves the SW part of the united parish of Strachur and Strathlachlan, is situated at Garbhallt, 1.25km NE of the medieval church site at Kilmorie (No. 75). It was built about 1792, and appears in a vignette on an estate map of that date (en.1).

The building, which measures 12.7m by 7.2m over 0.9m walls, is of harled rubble rising from a rough plinth, but the entrance-doorway in the NE gable and a lancet-window above it have sandstone dressings, now painted over. The angle-quoins are heavily rusticated with alternately projecting rubble blocks (en.2*), and the same treatment is applied to the surrounds of the Gothick features of the SW gable-wall, which has two lancet-windows flanking a taller blind lancet with a quatrefoil recess above. Its gable is surmounted by an open bird-cage belfry having thin circular pillars which support a slab roof and ball-finials. Each of the side-walls has two rectangular windows of modest size. The slated roof, with sprocketed barge-boards at the NE gable and cement skews at the SW, is of late 19th-century date.

Most of the internal furnishings are of recent date but the NE gallery, with a panelled front supported on two timber columns, is probably of early 19th-century origin. In the central panel it carries the arms of the family of MacLachlan of MacLachlan, in carved and painted timber, quarterly: 1st, or, a lion rampant gules; 2nd, argent, a dexter hand couped gules holding a cross fitchee of the same; 3rd, or, a galley sable with sail furled, oars in saltire and pennons flying, on a sea azure; 4th, argent, in base a salmon naiant argent in a sea azure. The supporters are two stags and the helm is surmounted by the crest of a three-towered castle, while the motto is FORTIS ET FIDUS ('Brave and Loyal').

RCAHMS 1992, visited June 1987

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