Colonsay, Scalasaig, Scalasaig Parish Church

(NR 389 940) This early 19th-century church occupies a dominant site overlooking Scalasaig village and harbour some 480 m to the E, and stands on an elongated D-shaped platform circumscribed by a rubble wall. It is a plain hip-roofed rectangular structure measuring 14.35 m from N to S by 8.85 m transversely over cement-rendered rubble walls 0.7 m in thickness.

The principal, or E, frontage has an advanced and pedimented centrepiece, fronted by a single-storeyed and round-ended vestry and is flanked by a pair of large semicircular-headed windows. There is a blind oculus immediately above the vestry, and the pediment is surmounted by a simple bird-cage belfry with ogival-topped canopy and ball-finial; a bell remains in situ. The W elevation contains two similar windows, and the main entrance is set within a plain porch in the centre of the N end-wall. This porch and a shed built against the S wall represent the lower surviving portions of external forestairs, which formerly gave access to lofts at each end of the building. The stairs and lofts are shown on a survey-drawing of 1910 (D MacDonald 1910, photographic copy AGD 507/1 P), and at that date the layout included a central arrangement of communion tables. The pulpit stands against the E wall, and a hinged baptismal basin of pewter is attached to the rail at the NE corner of the podium.

The church was designed and built by Michael Carmichael, architect, in 1801-4 at an original cost of £444.11s.6d., to which £41.15s.2d. was later added for fittings and furnishings (Loder 1935). It was intended to accommodate 400 sitters, and served as a chapel of ease for the Colonsay and Oronsay portion of the parish of Jura until 1861 when Colonsay was disjoined quoad omnia and acquired separate parochial status. Some repairs to the church were required in 1834.

RCAHMS 1984, visited May 1978

(Kintyre Presbytery Minutes 1801-5; H Scott et al 1915-61; J de V Loder 1935)