Carse, Kilberry Parish Church

This church, built in 1821 to replace the old church at Kilberry (No. 48), stands on a hillside terrace on the W bank of the Abhainn Learg an Uinnsinn, 0.6km from the head of Loch Stornoway and some 400m NNE of the burial-ground No. 82. Built of limewashed rubble-masonry with a hipped and slated roof, the rectangular main block measures 18.8m from ENE to WSW by 9.6m over 0.8m walls. At the centre of the W end-wall there is a small gabled porch with a ridge-belfry dated 1888, and a single-storeyed session-house adjoins the NE angle.

Originally there were ground- and first-floor doorways in each end-wall, those at the upper level being reached by external forestairs, and the blocked remains of those in the E wall are still visible. The S side-wall, which may have originally incorporated a central belfry, has a two-storeyed elevation comprising three round-headed blind 'windows' above a corresponding series of three lintelled openings; there is a further blocked window-opening towards the Wend. The N side-wall comprises four bays, including a pair of tall round-headed windows at the centre and two-storeyed bays of smaller oblong windows at each end.

The interior contains plain bench-pews and a continuous U-plan gallery centred on the pulpit, which stands at the centre of the N side-wall. Both pulpit and gallery have panelled fronts and the latter is supported by three fluted timber columns. In the existing arrangement the E and Wends of the church have been partitioned at ground level to form a vestry and an inner entrance-lobby respectively; a staircase rises to the gallery from the SW angle of the inner porch (1*).

The medieval church at Kilberry (No. 48) is said to have been replaced in the 17th century by temporary meeting houses in the Kilberry area, the second of which was ruinous by the 1730s, and thereafter services were held at various places including Carse and Largnahunsion (en.2). The choice of the latter for a new church was delayed by the opposition of Colin Campbell of Kilberry, the principal heritor, and it was only in 1814 that the Presbytery of Kintyre agreed that the church should be built 'contiguous to the place called the preaching rock', a traditional place of worship, and plans by Alexander Grant, a Leith architect, were approved (en.3). In 1820a contract was drawn up with George Johnston (see Nos. 70, 82, 156 and 165) to complete the church, 'according to a plan and specification showen me by Mr Campbell of Dunmore', for £573, a sum which expressly excluded the use of ornamental stonework. The church is said to have been built in 1821, to seat 700 persons, although Kirk Session minutes show that drainage operations were still in progress in 1826.The addition of the W porch, with the formation of the inner porch and vestry and alteration of the gallery, took place in the 1870 (en.4). The union with Kilcalmonell was dissolved in 1965 and the parish was united with Tarbert.

RCAHMS 1992, visited October 1986