Kiel Parish Church, Session House

Keil Church, Peter MacGregor Chalmers, 1898 Simple white-harled kirk with red sandstone frogging and some decent turn-of-thecentury stained glass (memorial window by Stephen Adam, 1899). It was built on the site of the former parish church of 1799, which in turn replaced the pre-Reformation Cill Choluimchille, of 13th century origin. Session House, 1774, formerly a school (until 1833 ); restored as a museum, 1997. From the large surrounding graveyard comes a highly important collection of medieval gravestones (now on display in the Session House). These are mostly tapered slabs, probably of the 14th/15th century Iona School, carved with figures, animals, galleys, swords, and floriated and scrolled ornamentation. South of the church, a tapering, disc-headed medieval cross of greenish schist marks the boundary of the religious sanctuary, its intact shaft ornamented with intertwined plantscrolls, a pair of dragons' heads at its base. Among various good 18th-century headstones and table tombs, significant remnants of the medieval church stand in the kirkyard. Two ruinous Maclean burial aisles occupy the probable site of its transepts. One incorporates into its thick walls moulded and carved fragments of late medieval masonry of Iona school, notably an archway (which probably opened from the main body of the church) and part of a traceried window.

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk