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 1661

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 747848

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 c.1886 before the church was demolished c.1900, and a modern church built on the site. This rectangular-shaped building, with a small vestry adjoining the end gable wall, was built in the style of a typical 'Highland' church. It was very modest, with plain, harled and whitewashed walls, and a steeply pitched slated roof. Four slated gabled dormers, two on each side of the roof, breached the line of the eaves, and probably lit galleries inside the church. 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. Within a rubble-walled enclosure on the left side of the churchyard is a yew tree reputedly almost 2,000 years old. The yew tree, said to be the oldest in Europe, is thought to have been planted before or around the time of the founding of the Celtic church which is thought to have stood on the site. In 1769 the girth of the tree was recorded as 17.23m, and despite a period of decay in the 19th century, the tree is still flourishing. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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