‘A vigorous community’

WHEN I was a boy in the 1950s, with relatives in Balfron (also in west Stirlingshire), Drymen seemed a glamorous place.

This was largely on account of the Buchanan Arms Hotel, a fashionable destination for Glasgow people wanting a good lunch or dinner, or a weekend away. The centre of the village, even then had something of the air of a Highland clachan.

There was a plain little church near the centre, which I now know had been built as a secession church in 1819, for this was a part of Scotland where the 18th-century secessions had flourished.

Motor cars were becoming numerous, but bus services were still important; Drymen still had a railway station, but it was 2km away, at a hamlet called Croftamie, and had lost its passenger services in about 1930. It was still served by goods services.

This rather personal summary is to set the scene for the looking at the parish church, which was obviously built to serve a scattered agricultural community, rather than a populous village.

The Rev Timothy Pont’s map of the area (c1600) shows ‘Drumyn Kirk’ roughly where the present church sits, and there was at that time already a bridge over the Endrick; the present very fine bridge was opened in 1765. By that time the village and parish had become of more than local significance, with the construction of a military road from Stirling to Dumbarton through the area, following the Jacobite rising of 1715.

West Stirlingshire is today something of a backwater, but it was not always so. Drymen parish is on the north bank of the river Endrick near where it flows into Loch Lomond. The river valley was a route from west to east, and had some strategic importance.

The parish was a mediaeval foundation, and the original parish church, dedicated to St Columba or St Kessog, was probably on the site of the present building.

The parish revenues belonged until the Reformation to Glasgow Cathedral. An important influence on the area was the ‘great house’ of Buchanan Castle. This was originally constructed in the 14th century. It was altered in 1751 by Robert Adam and enlarged in 1789 by James Playfair. Destroyed by fire in 1850, it was replaced on a new site for the then Duke of Montrose, whose family still own much land in the parish.

Though for centuries the economy of the parish was dominated by agriculture, it is now largely dominated by its attraction to visitors, mainly for its proximity to the east bank of Loch Lomond.

It is against this background that one should see the present parish church.

The first part of it was constructed in 1771 by George Taylor, a mason from Arnprior, another Stirlingshire village. It is a red sandstone building, but owes its present appearance to its being harled and painted white in 1962. It was originally rectangular on plan, with east and west galleries and the pulpit in the middle of the south side, very typical of smaller churches of the period. In 1840- 41 the present belfry was added, as seen in my drawing.

Between 1879 and 1884 the building was radically altered. The pulpit was moved to the east end, where a new three-light window was inserted, and a new west porch (on the left in my drawing) and north and south transepts were added. Lastly, galleries were inserted into the transepts, with pyramid-roofed stair towers to give access to them. One of these stair towers can be seen in the drawing. The resulting synthesis is, as can be seen, full of character. The interior is simple and pleasing.

In the early 21st century an extension was built on the north side to provide hall accommodation.

Today this church complex houses a vigorous community in a lovely part of Scotland.

This article appears in the February 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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