Kilmun Parish Church
| Kilmun Parish Church and Argyll Mausoleum | |
|
Kilmun, Argyllshire | |
|---|---|
 The church and tower | |
| Church of Scotland | |
| Presbytery of Argyll | |
| Parish: | NS16598207 |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NS16598207 |
| Location: | 55°59’47"N, 4°56’33"W |
| History | |
| Built 1841 | |
| Information | |
Kilmun Parish Church is the former parish church of Kilmun in Argyllshire. Attached to the church is the Argyll Mausoleum, the burial place of the Earls and Dukes of Argyll and their families. The church is active, but no longer a parish church of the Church of Scotland.
With the attached Mausoleum, the building is listed as a Category A listed building,[1] listing which embraces St Munn's Church, the mausoleum and a historically significant churchyard.
The complex is located on the summit of a slight knoll about ten yards from the shoreline of the Holy Loch on the Cowal Peninsula of Argyllshire.
The existing church dates from 1841 and occupies the site of an older, mediæval church. A partly ruined tower from the mediæval period still stands to the west of the present building.[2]
History
Most of St Munn's Parish Church as it appears today dates from the 19th century, although the old, ruined tower located to the west of the present building (now a Scheduled Ancient Monument) belongs to a much older foundation.[2]
In the 7th century, an Irish monk, St Munn (Fintán of Taghmon), founded a monastic community at Kilmun. The remains of a 12th-century church are still visible. At the present site, a church building is recorded in the 13th century.[1] By the 15th century, the significance of Kilmun as a local centre of Christianity was so great that the adjacent loch became known as the Holy Loch, and the powerful Clan Campbell adopted it as their spiritual home. From the 14th century, Dunoon Castle, a short distance away, was held by the Campbell family and in the 1440s Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochawe (later 1st Lord Campbell), the then chief of the clan, lived near Kilmun in a private residence named Strathechaig. When his eldest son Archibald died tragically in 1442, the young man was laid to rest at Kilmun. This marked the beginning of the tradition of Kilmun as Campbell burial place.
Soon after this, the said Sir Duncan Campbell endowed Kilmun parish church as a collegiate church, ensuring continued praying there for him, his ancestors and his descendants. At that time, Kilmun was closely linked with Paisley Abbey, and St Munn was adopted as the patron saint of Clan Campbell.[3] At the collegiate church, a provost and five chaplains were appointed. The now partly ruined tower to the west of Kilmun Parish Church was the residence for these six clergymen and a place of refuge for the local population during dangerous times. The clergymen at Kilmun were priests living as a community, not actual monks, and could have played an active part in the local community in addition to their religious duties of saying prayers and masses.[4] Duncan Campbell died in 1453 and was buried near the altar of his collegiate church. This began the tradition of burying chiefs of Clan Campbell at Kilmun.
In 1688 the choir of the collegiate church was re-built to serve as a parish church.[1]
In 1841 the bulk of the collegiate church was demolished to make way for a new church designed by architect Thomas Burns. A new church building had become necessary to house the increasing number of summer visitors to the Holy Loch.[1] A thorough restoration of the parish church and Argyll Mausoleum was carried out in the 1890s, led by the Marquess of Lorne, who later succeeded as 9th Duke of Argyll. Between 1898 and 1899, the architect Peter McGregor Chalmers re-arranged the interior of the church and also designed much of the carved chancel furniture and paneling.[1]
Architecture
Exterior
St Munn's is built of snecked, squared sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings. The roof is made of grey slate. The main body of the church is on a T-shaped floor plan, with the nave extending to the north.[1]
At the head of the T-shaped building is a small, modern square bell tower with corner finials and a pierced stone parapet, over an advanced, gabled central bay. The old tower to the west of the present church, which features ashlar sandstone, seems to have been part of the mediæval parish church which was endowed as a collegiate church in 1442 by Sir Duncan Campbell.[1]
The church is lit by single lancet windows on the main southern wall and by wider traceried lancets on the eastern and western gables. The church contains a number of stained glass windows, many by Stephen Adam, including life of Christ scenes and a portrait of George Miller of Invereck as St Matthew. Adam's successor, Alfred Webster, designed a number of later windows, including a war memorial window in the northern gable. The halls in the north-western angle of the church were built in 1909–10, also by Chalmers. Piend-roofed, with mullioned and leaded windows.[1]
Interior
In 1898–99, the architect Peter McGregor Chalmers re-arranged the interior of St Munn's, forming an open choir in the place of the closed vestry on the southern wall. He introduced new arcades supporting the eastern and western galleries. Much of the intricately carved chancel furniture and panelling was also designed by McGregor Chalmers.[1]
The church's flat ceiling is supported by decorative Tudor-arched trusses supported on stone corbels. The walls are rendered with exposed sandstone dressings and panelled to dado height.[1]
The church contains a hydraulically-powered organ by Norman & Beard of 1909,[5] which (apart from St Mary's, Dalkeith[6]) is probably the only water-powered organ in Scotland still in use.[1]
Churchyard
The churchyard at Kilmun Parish Church contains a number of interesting memorials, including later mediæval tapered slabs and several high quality post-mediæval headstones (mainly from the 17th and 18th century) as well as table-tombs carved with trade tools and the Douglas Mausoleum (see below).
The graveyard was extended twice, at first to the north and later to the west, taking up some of the grounds of Old Kilmun House. The churchyard walls are likely to date from 1818 to 1819, when the graveyard was laid out in its present form.[1]
As part of the programme of community events organized by the Argyll Mausoleum Ltd, several areas of the graveyard have now been surveyed and the inscriptions been recorded. Photos have been taken of most of the gravestones.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Kilmun Parish Church and Argyll Mausoleum) |
- Kilmun Church website
- Argyll Mausoleum website
- www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk with images of Kilmun Parish Church and the Argyll Mausoleum
- Faith in Cowal website. Kilmun Church is now the hub of a 200-mile network of pilgrim trails in Cowal.
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 St Munn's Parish Church (Church of Scotland) including Argyll and Douglas Mausolea, associated buildings and graveyard and excluding scheduled monument SM5260, Kilmun (Category A) - Listing detail (Historic Environment Scotland)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Kilmun Collegiate Church, tower and burial ground - scheduled monument detail (Historic Environment Scotland)
- ↑ Campbell, Alister (2000). A History of Clan Campbell: From Flodden to the Revolution. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 255–256. ISBN 978-1-902930-17-6. OCLC 81142779. https://books.google.com/books?id=4ek2lrDPjF0C&pg=PA255.
- ↑ Historic Klmun, Kilmun Church and Argyll Mausoleum, souvenir booklet by Argyll Mausoleum Ltd, Kilmun 2015.
- ↑ Kilmun Parish Church: Scotland's Churches Trust
- ↑ "History – St Mary's, Dalkeith". https://stmarysdalkeith.org.uk/history.