Fortingall, Parish Church. General view.

Description Fortingall, Parish Church. General view.

Date 26/9/1884

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number PT 1660

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 747821

Scope and Content Fortingall Parish Church, Perth & Kinross (now demolished and present church built on site) Fortingall Parish Church, a 19th-century parish church which occupies the site and incorporates some of the remains of its mainly pre-Reformation predecessor, stands in pretty countryside at the head of Glen Lyon. This photograph was taken by Erskine Beveridge in 1894 before the church was demolished c.1900, and a modern church built on the site. This modest little church was built very much in the style of a typical 'Highland' church. It was harled and whitewashed, with a steeply pitched slated roof, and had a small vestry adjoining the end gable wall. The gabled dormer window, with its projecting slated roof, suggests a mid- to late 19th-century design. The bellcote, dating from the late 18th century, came from the earlier church on the site, and contained a bell made in 1765 by Johannes Specht of Rotterdam. The name Fortingall is derived from two Gaelic words, 'Forter Cill', and means 'Fort Church'. The old church on the site was long and narrow, consisting of a nave and chancel with a late 18th-century bellcote at the meeting between the two. The finding of fragments of ancient cross-slabs in the graveyard, and the existence of a Celtic bell, iron-coated with bronze, suggests that the site is very old and dates back to the period of a Celtic church, although nothing is known of its history. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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