A CHURCH in Argyll is among the top ten Scottish buildings of the last hundred years.

St Conan’s Kirk, perched on the north shore of Loch Awe between Dalmally and Taynuilt, ranks alongside such iconic and well-known structures as the Scottish Parliament and the National Museum of Scotland in a recent competition organised as part of the Festival of Architecture by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS).

A year-long process involved people nominating 400 of their favourite buildings across Scotland, of which 100 were chosen by an expert panel including historians and art critics and a final shortlist of ten drawn up on which the public voted. The winner, announced at the end of last year, was the Princes Square shopping centre in Glasgow. The fact that St Conan’s made it through to the final top ten of Scotland’s best buildings of the twentieth century is a remarkable tribute to what is arguably the country’s most quirky, atmospheric and intriguing ecclesiastical building, and one which provides a perfect introduction to the distinctive spiritual landscape of Argyll.

Many of those passing by in coaches or cars en route to Oban or the islands probably gain the impression that it is an ancient medieval church which has stood for centuries, maybe even since the time of Conan, a somewhat shadowy seventh century saint who seems to have been active in this part of Lorne. In fact, St Conan’s Kirk is very much a twentieth century building, the creation of Walter Douglas Campbell, an eccentric and well-connected architect born in 1850, who lived with his sister and brother in a mansion house of his own design on Innis Chonain, an island in the north of Loch Awe connected to the mainland by a bridge. Apparently in response to his mother’s complaints that the long drive to the parish church in Dalmally was too much for her, he built a small and relatively simple church on the north side of the loch in the 1880s. He later decided to extend and transform it into something much grander, beginning work to his own designs in 1907. When Campbell died seven years later the new church was less than half completed. Work was suspended during the First World War and thereafter his sister Helen supervised construction until her own death in 1927. The church was finally completed in 1930.

Built out of local Cruachan granite boulders, which were rolled down from the hill above, split and roughly shaped on site, St Conan’s is a hotchpotch of different architectural styles. Especially on a drizzly or misty day, of which there are plenty around Loch Awe, its turreted and pinnacled exterior resembles a cross between Hogwarts School and one of the castles built by King Ludwig of Bavaria. The large Saxon tower is modelled on Monkwearmouth Church in Durham with its associations with the Venerable Bede. Another smaller tower is said to be based on a Norman church in Picardy. Built on the steeply sloping banks of Loch Awe, the south wall is held up by a mass of flying buttresses and retaining walls which enhance the church’s fairy-tale atmosphere and appearance. Perched on a buttress below the smaller tower, and next to an elaborate Romanesque doorway, the figure of St Conan, sculpted by Alexander Carrick, looks out over the loch. Steps from the doorway lead down to a series of terraces, the lowest of which is called St Modan’s Walk

The church is best entered through cloisters that could have come straight from one of Argyll’s medieval monasteries. An elaborately carved Norman archway leads into the South Aisle, also known as

St Columba’s Aisle, which is flanked by side chapels dedicated to St Conval and St Bride. Beyond it, continuing along the south side of the church, is another aisle, dedicated to St Fillan, from which projects a large side chapel containing a larger than life size wooden effigy of Robert the Bruce. A spacious nave, the main remnant of the original 1880s building, gives way to a vast chancel enclosed at its east end by a semicircular apse, said to have been inspired by St John’s Chapel in the Tower of London and made up of ten granite pillars carrying high stilted arches in the Romanesque style and wrapped around with a five sided ambulatory with clear glass windows looking out on the mountains of Glenorchy and Glenstrae. A cavernous crypt below the chancel adds to the Cathedral-like atmosphere and air of dark mystery which hangs over the whole building.

St Conans Kirk, Loch Awe

Photo: iStock

The eclectic feel of St Conan’s is enhanced by the provenance of many of its adornments and furnishings as much as by the variety of its architectural styles. Built into its walls are stones from the old medieval church of Inchinnan in Renfrewshire and the surrounds of a window from Iona Abbey.

The oak beams in the cloister roof come from two old battleships, the Caledonia and the Duke of Wellington. Among the artefacts which decorate the various chapels are two slabs of Levantine marble, the original west window from St Mary’s Church, South Leith, two screens from Eton College Chapel and a large bell from the Skerryvore Lighthouse. A striking set of four chairs in the chancel apse, their sides carved in sweeping Art Nouveau curves flaring from the mouths of dolphins, appear to be of Venetian origin and other chairs in the chancel come from Greyfriars Kirk and Old Corstorphine Church in Edinburgh. The font is a model of a Breton fishing boat.

At one level St Conan’s Kirk is an exercise in wild romantic fantasy. Walter Campbell maintained that the tiny room accessed from St Bride’s Chapel through a small Saxon doorway was the cell of St Conan himself. Yet at the same time it is also a very ordered and very Presbyterian place. Although the Church has never been part of the Church of Scotland and is maintained by a group of trustees, services there are taken predominantly by the local parish minister of Glenorchy. This may be the only Presbyterian church in Scotland to display a relic – let into the base of the effigy of Robert the Bruce is a small ossuary containing a bone taken from his tomb at Dunfermline Abbey – but it has a clear Reformed atmosphere in terms of its liturgical layout. At the east end of the apse is an oak communion table rather than a marble altar. Quirky as it is, it embodies the open, liturgical, mystical Presbyterianism that has been particularly characteristic of Argyll.

The trustees who look after this muchloved church are looking to find more than £1,000,000 to repair the roof and protect it from the ravages of Argyll’s wind and rain. The fact that it has just been voted one of Scotland’s best buildings of the last century should surely encourage charitable trusts as well as individuals to contribute to its repair and preservation.

It is a unique if quirky testament to the romantic Presbyterianism of Argyll and of its Campbell creator. As a spiritual space, it offers many possibilities for use in liturgical, pastoral and educational contexts as well as for concerts and other activities.

Long may it stand keeping watch over the brooding waters of Loch Awe.

Ian Bradley is author of Argyll: The Making of a Spiritual Landscape (Saint Andrew Press).