St Michael's Chapel

While preparing the 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey 6-inch map of Banffshire (1874), the Ordnance Survey recorded that the remains of a Roman Catholic chapel were visible within the graveyard of St Michael's Church. The church stands on the eastern bank of the River Avon, near the foot of Cnoc Fergan.

In 1966 the Ordnance Survey visited the site and could not locate the chapel's remains. Local information suggested that the chapel might have occupied a low knoll to the east, opposite the present church. Alternatively, the church may have lain to the north-east of the present graveyard. The date of the chapel is uncertain though it may be pre-Reformation.

Text prepared by RCAHMS as part of the Accessing Scotland's Past project

NJ12SW 1 1438 2387.

(NJ 1438 2387) Chapel (NR) (Remains of).

OS 6" map, Banffshire, 2nd ed., (1903)

The remains of a Catholic Chapel were visible in 1869 in the graveyard.

Name Book 1869.

No trace could be found of a chapel. The present church was erected in 1956, after the former one which occupied the site was burned down in 1950. The present minister (Rev A Whyte, Main Street, Tomintoul), could add no further information concerning the chapel. According to Dr Gaffney (V Gaffney, Diamond cottage, Tomintoul), there is a tradition that the chapel either lay across the NE wall of the present graveyard at NJ 1437 2388 or on the knoll on the E. side of the road opposite the present church at NJ 1440 2387, but this could not be substantiated.

Visited by OS (R B) 5 August 1966.