Field Visit
Date July 1987
Event ID 1082798
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082798
This church stands on a terrace N of the Inverchaolain Burn and 130m from the E shore of Loch Striven, overlooking the former manse, which was erected in 1807 (en.1*). The church was built in 1912, following the destruction by fire of a building of 1812, itself believed to have had two predecessors. However, local tradition recorded that the medieval church, supposedly dedicated to St Bridget, had occupied a higher site some 220m to the NE (No. 39) (en.2).
Early photographs show that the 1812 church was a rectangular hip-roofed structure occupying the same position as the present building (en.3*). Its S facade had an advanced centrepiece whose pediment carried a bird-cage bell cot, while each of the flanking bays contained one lancet window with intersecting tracery. The parish of Inverchaolain includes the area round Loch Striven, and the whole of the Colintraive promontory. The parson of 'Inverkelan' appears as a witness to a charter of about 1230-6 (en.4). At some period thereafter the parsonage was granted to the Trinitarian house of Fail, Ayrshire, with which it remained until the Reformation, the proceeds at that time being leased to the laird of Lamont for a fixed annual payment (en.5). After the Reformation the parish was attached for some time to Strathlachlan, but this union was rescinded in 1651 (en.6).
ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENT (en.7*). Fixed to the inner face of the S wall of the church, above the entrance-door, there is a sandstone finial-stone, probably of medieval date. Measuring 0.58m by 0.31m over all, it is of cruciform plan, incorporating two intersecting ridges of triangular section. At the junction there is a socket 35mm square and 30mmdeep, presumably for a cross-finial. The stone has subsequently been re-used, perhaps as a gravemarker, and bears the date 1723 and, on one end, the initials TL.
RCAHMS 1992, visited July 1987
[a description of 13 funerary monuments is included in RCAHMS 1992, No. 40]
