A wondrous experience

THE former county of Argyll is characterised by a deeply-indented coastline and numerous islands.

Best-known of the islands are Islay, Jura, Mull, Iona, Tiree, Coll and Colonsay, part of the Inner Hebrides.

The long sea-lochs – Loch Long, Loch Fyne, Loch Sween, Loch Etive – split up the mainland in a manner which makes road communication difficult, and ferries are needed to reach the islands.

The latter are relics of the time when sea transport was vital to the whole area, which developed close links with the north of Ireland.

The Christianisation of the area is strongly linked with the mission of St Columba to Iona, and his missionary colleagues and successors, whose names are linked with parish names throughout Argyll and Bute.

The subject of this article is in the parish of Kilbrandon and Kilchattan, named after the Celtic saints Brendan and Kattan. Historically this was a civil parish which embraced the islands of Luing, Seil and Belnahua, and part of the mainland north of Seil. It lies to the south of Mull and south-west of Oban.

Well off any tourist route, and now largely forgotten, this parish was for much of the period from the 17th century to the mid-20th century celebrated for its slate-quarrying industry, which flourished because of the ease of shipping finished slates by sea to customers all over Scotland. Hence the term ‘Slate Islands’ applied to Luing and Seil, and the small islands of Easdale and Belnahua, both almost quarried away. Seil has been linked to the mainland by a spectacular single-span bridge – the so-called ‘Bridge over the Atlantic’ – since 1790, but Luing and Easdale are still reached by ferry. The ferry from Seil to Luing is across the Cuan Sound, and Kilbrandon Church is close to the Seil terminal of that ferry. There is also a small church on Luing, Kilchattan, built in 1932.

The success of the slate trade during the 18th and 19th centuries led to the building of quarrymen’s villages, Ellenabeich and Balvicar on Seil, and Toberonochy and Cullipool on Luing. To cope with the growing population the mediaeval chapels on both islands were supplanted in 1795 by a new parish church at Cuan, sited to serve both islands. This was in turn replaced in 1864-66 by the present church, which after a period as a hospital has been converted into a house. The Victorian church is on a prominent site, its profile raised by a handsome belfry above the entrance, described in The Buildings of Scotland: Argyll and Bute as ‘a superb belfry in form of ogeedomed octagonal temple’. The body of the church is rectangular in plan, with four arched windows on each side, a typical Argyll arrangement. Internally it has a west gallery, and an open timber-framed roof. Apart from its belfry, the great glory of the building is a suite of five stained-glass windows at its east end. As built the windows were glazed with small diamond panes.

In 1937-38, however, Miss Mackinnon of Ardmaddy Castle (in the mainland part of the parish, commissioned five windows for the east end of the church, in memory of her friend the Marchioness of Breadalbane. These were the work of Douglas Strachan, a notable stained-glass artist of the period. There are three lancet windows in the east gable, depicting Christ’s ministry round the Sea of Galilee. The north-east window shows the Resurrection and the Road to Emmaus, and the south-east one shows the Nativity and Christ in Revelation Glory. All of these windows are richly coloured, and to encounter them (as I did) on a typically rainy west Highland day, in such a remote place was a wondrous experience. A visit to this church, and indeed to the Slate Islands is very worthwhile.