Field Visit

Date August 1971

Event ID 1146805

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1146805

RCAHMS County Inventory: Argyll Volume 2; Lorn

(NM 971 349) Ardchattan Priory. The priory (RCAHMS 1975 Fig. 88, Pls. 13, 14) occupies a sheltered situation on the N shore of Loch Etive about 6 km E of North Connel. The site forms part of a narrow strip of cultivable ground lying at the foot of the Benderloch Hills, overlooking the outer reaches of the loch, which until recent years comprised one of the main channels of communication between the interior of Lorn and the western seaboard.

The architectural development of the structure is not altogether clear, but the principal stages in the evolution of the fabric appear to have been as follows. A church with associated conventual buildings was erected soon after the foundation of the Valliscaulian priory in 1230 or 1231. This church comprised a small choir and crossing, N and S transepts with double transeptal chapels, and a nave having a narrow N aisle. The conventual buildings were disposed round a cloister on the S side of the church in the usual way, the W range, however, being represented only by a cloister-walk and an outer retaining-wall. Of the buildings of this period there remain today the S transept with its two chapels, and some fragments of the nave and crossing. Certain portions of the monastic buildings incorporated within the present mansion may also belong to this period, notably the W wall of the cloister.

A major scheme of reconstruction was begun and partially completed during the 15th and early 16th centuries, when a new and much larger choir with an adjacent N sacristy was erected and parts of the crossing, N transept and nave were rebuilt. The S range of the conventual buildings was also remodelled, a new refectory being constructed upon the site of the origin alone. All these buildings survive today either in whole or in part. Following the cessation of religious life towards the end of the 16th century the priory was secularized, passing into the hands of Alexander Campbell, who had formerly been its commendatory prior. The Campbell family converted the S range of the conventual buildings into a private dwelling-house, while the choir and transepts of the church were used for parochial worship during the 17th and early 18th centuries, a number of private burial-aisles being added to the church during this period. Following the erection of a new parish church in 1731-2 the monastic church fell into disuse, except for the purposes of burial, and the fabric was subsequently quarried for building-materials. The house was enlarged and remodelled in about the middle of the19th century, and numerous minor alterations have been carried out since, but the monastic refectory still survives as the nucleus of the present mansion, whose offices and outbuildings now extend over the site of the former nave and cloister. The remaining portions of the choir and transepts of the monastic church passed into the guardianship of the Department of the Environment in 1954.

The priory of Ardchattan was founded by Duncan MacDougall, lord of Lorn, in 1230 or 1231, being one of three houses of the Valliscaulian Order established in Scotland at that time. The endowments included lands and rights in Benderloch, Appin and Nether Lorn, as well as the teinds, or portions of the teinds, of the churches of Baile Mhaodain, Kilninver and Kilbrandon, in Lorn; Soroby; in Tiree; and Kilmarow, in Kintyre. The dedication was to St Mary and St John the Baptist (n.1). Little is known of the history of the monastery before the 16th century, although the names of some of the priors are recorded in documentary sources, and on stone memorials at Ardchattan. In a letter addressed to the pope by James V in 1538 on behalf of Prior Duncan MacArthur of Ardchattan, it is stated that Duncan had been promoted to this office by James IV thirty years previously, and that he had revived religious life thereby choosing the six religious that the priory could support, and restoring the church and other buildings, which had been falling into ruin (n.2). It seems likely that the existing W wall of the choir (supra, p. 103) represents one of the fruits of this building-activity. About the middle of the 16th century John Campbell, a younger son of Sir John Campbell of Cawdor and afterwards bishop of the Isles, was appointed commendator and prior of Ardchattan, and in 1602 Alexander Campbell, who had succeeded his father as commendatory prior in 1580, received a grant of the monastery as a secular tenantry (n.3). The property has since remained in the possession of Alexander Campbell's descendants, who continue to occupy the former conventual buildings as a private residence.

John Campbell, 2nd of Ardchattan, supported the Royalist cause during the Civil War. In 1644 he is said to have helped Colkitto's army to cross Connel ferry on condition that his lands were not burnt (n.4). In 1653-4 Campbell garrisoned Ardchattan on behalf of Charles II during Glencairn's rising, whereupon Captain Mutloe, the Cromwellian governor of Dunstaffnage, ‘fell uppon the house, and after some dispute having kill'd 3 of the Enemy, entred the house, and tooke a Lieutenant with some other prisoners, and store of armes and amunition’ (n.5). The laird subsequently claimed that the house had been ‘brunt, plundered & destroyed’ (n.6), but this report was probably exaggerated. Although the conventual buildings were appropriated for domestic use, part of the monastic church was utilized for parochial worship, for it was reported to the presbytery in 1678 that ‘the brethren having visited the fabrick of the old parish church of Ballevoadan (RCAHMS 1975 No.220), as also the fabrick of the kirk and Quire of Ardchattan, being the ordinar place of publick worship past memory of any at present liveing, do find both ruined, and nothing but old walles’ (n.7). No doubt th etimber galleries, of which some traces remain within the crossing (supra, p. 103), were introduced during this period of post-Reformation occupation, which evidently continued until the erection of a new church on a fresh site in 1731-2 (cf. RCAHMS 1975 No. 215). It is probable that some of the stone used in the construction of this church was obtained by dismantling the choir (n.8). The monastery also provided a convenient quarry for use in building-operations at the adjacent mansion, and in 1798 it was reported that ‘the place has been destroyed by the possessor for the sake of the stones, much to the regret of the inhabitants’ (n.9). A number of minor accounts relating to miscellaneous building-activity at Ardchattan during the late 17th and 18th centuries survive among the family papers, and it is known that the house was repaired by John Drummond, the Oban builder, in 1815 (n.10). The mansion was extended to its present size and remodelled under the direction of Charles Wilson, the Glasgow architect, between about 1847 and 1855 (n.11).

For a detailed architectural description, and a description of the funerary monuments and other carved stones, see RCAHMS 1975, 99-115, No. 217, figs.88-101.

RCAHMS 1975, visited August 1971