Inverchaolain Church
Church (19th Century), War Memorial (20th Century)
Site Name Inverchaolain Church
Classification Church (19th Century), War Memorial (20th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Parish Church, Kirk; Second World War Memorial Plaque
Canmore ID 40444
Site Number NS07NE 2
NGR NS 09095 75301
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/40444
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Inverchaolain
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NS07NE 2.00 09095 75301
NS07NE 2.01 09096 75282 Churchyard
NS07NE 2.02 09095 75323 Churchyard Extension
(NS 0909 7530) Inverchaolain parish church, surrounded by a burial ground, was built in 1812, and is the third church on the same site. The first was built by a man, whose funds ran out, and a part of it remained unslated for many years. Another church was built close to it in 1745, it was pulled down when the present building was erected.
When the foundations were being dug in 1812, several dozen human skulls were found, and near them a few bones of a very large size.
Argyll County Council list (a) a claymore stone (b) an ancient tombstone with a Gaelic inscription and (c) a coping stone from the pre-Reformation church (NS07NE 1) at Inverchaolain church.
NSA 1845; Argyll County Council 1914.
In normal use.
Visited by OS (I A) 27 February 1973.
NMRS NOTES
Inverchaolain Kirk.
ARCHITECT: James Gillespie Graham 1807 - not executed.
Field Visit (July 1987)
This church stands on a terrace N of the Inverchaolain Burn and 130m from the E shore of Loch Striven, overlooking the former manse, which was erected in 1807 (en.1*). The church was built in 1912, following the destruction by fire of a building of 1812, itself believed to have had two predecessors. However, local tradition recorded that the medieval church, supposedly dedicated to St Bridget, had occupied a higher site some 220m to the NE (No. 39) (en.2).
Early photographs show that the 1812 church was a rectangular hip-roofed structure occupying the same position as the present building (en.3*). Its S facade had an advanced centrepiece whose pediment carried a bird-cage bell cot, while each of the flanking bays contained one lancet window with intersecting tracery. The parish of Inverchaolain includes the area round Loch Striven, and the whole of the Colintraive promontory. The parson of 'Inverkelan' appears as a witness to a charter of about 1230-6 (en.4). At some period thereafter the parsonage was granted to the Trinitarian house of Fail, Ayrshire, with which it remained until the Reformation, the proceeds at that time being leased to the laird of Lamont for a fixed annual payment (en.5). After the Reformation the parish was attached for some time to Strathlachlan, but this union was rescinded in 1651 (en.6).
ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENT (en.7*). Fixed to the inner face of the S wall of the church, above the entrance-door, there is a sandstone finial-stone, probably of medieval date. Measuring 0.58m by 0.31m over all, it is of cruciform plan, incorporating two intersecting ridges of triangular section. At the junction there is a socket 35mm square and 30mmdeep, presumably for a cross-finial. The stone has subsequently been re-used, perhaps as a gravemarker, and bears the date 1723 and, on one end, the initials TL.
RCAHMS 1992, visited July 1987
[a description of 13 funerary monuments is included in RCAHMS 1992, No. 40]
