St Conan’s Kirk

St Conan's Kirk (View From Road)

St Conan’s Kirk, Church of Scotland,[1] is located in Loch Awe, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is situated on a crag high above the water amid vegetation which includes roses, honeysuckle, and ivy, and is surrounded by large trees. It was established as a chapel of ease[2] by the Campbells of Innis Chonan.[1] St Conan's Tower is 0.5 miles (0.80 km) away.[3] The church is protected as a category A listed building.[4]

It is renowned for the fragment of bone that is rumoured to have come from Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland.

Architecture and fittings

It was designed by the self-made architect Walter Douglas Campbell, and built in 1881-6; with renovation in 1906.[5] The heavy oak beams in the cloister are believed to have come from the (then) recently broken up wooden battleships, HMS Caledonia and HMS Duke of Wellington.[6] An eccentric blend of church styles, from ancient Roman to Norman,[7] it is built of local stone. It consists of a nave and chancel, with the chancel-stalls being canopied. Large, unsmoothed boulders of granite from nearby Ben Cruachan, form the piers which carry the chancel arch, and the transepts make the Sacred Cross. There is also a tower and spire.[8]

Fittings include a small organ. One old window from South Leith Parish Church was re-used at St Conan's.[9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Murray, John (1906). Handbook for travellers in Scotland (Public domain ed.). E. Stanford. pp. 193–. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  2. Groome, Francis Hindes (1884). Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland: a survey of Scottish topography, statistical, biographical and historical (Public domain ed.). T. C. Jack. pp. 532–. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  3. Boyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison (1896). The last years of St. Andrews: September 1890 to September 1895 (Public domain ed.). Longmans, Green, and co. pp. 166–. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  4. "St Conan's Church of Scotland: Listed Building Report". Historic Scotland. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  5. Glendinning, Miles; MacInnes, Ranald; MacKechnie, Aonghus (1996). A history of Scottish architecture: from the Renaissance to the present day. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 559–. ISBN 978-0-7486-0849-2. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  6. HMS Caledonia - the Royal Naval Engineering School - a short history" by Lieutenants KP Hunter & RJ Rogers, RN:
  7. Miers, Richenda (1 September 2006). Scotland's highlands & islands. New Holland Publishers. pp. 87–. ISBN 978-1-86011-340-6. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  8. The Building news and engineering journal (Public domain ed.). 1883. pp. 690–. Retrieved 29 October 2011.
  9. South Leith Records Second Series, (Leith, 1925), 290

Coordinates: 56°23′43″N 5°03′14″W / 56.3953°N 5.054°W / 56.3953; -5.054

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