Islay, Ballygrant, Kilmeny Parish Church
Church (18th Century), War Memorial (20th Century)
Site Name Islay, Ballygrant, Kilmeny Parish Church
Classification Church (18th Century), War Memorial (20th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Kilmeny And Ballygrant War Memorial
Canmore ID 37702
Site Number NR36NE 30
NGR NR 38967 65730
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/37702
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Killarow And Kilmeny
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NR36NE 30 38967 65730
Kilmeny Parish Church [NAT]
OS (GIS) MasterMap, July 2010.
For present Killarow parish church (in Bowmore, at NR 3115 5951), see NR35SW 2.
For Kilmeny Old Manse (NR 3879 6564), see NR36NE 31.
Field Visit (August 1977)
NR 389 657. This church stands within a plantation about 400 m NNE of its medieval predecessor (NR36NE 7) and 800m SW of Ballygrant village. An earlier building was remodelled by Walter F Campbell of Islay, at a cost of £238, about 1828, when the adjacent parliamentary manse (NR36NE 31; RCAHMS 1984) was built to serve the N portion of the joint parish of Kilarrow and Kilmeny, which in 1849 became the quoad sacra parish of Kilmeny. (Higland Churches 6th Report; H Scott et al 1915-61) Further extensive alterations were made in the second half of the 19th century.
The building is constructed of lime washed rubble masonry with red sandstone dressings. It comprises a rectangular main block with a single-storeyed vestry at the rear and a gabled porch added to the centre of the front (NW) wall. The original block measures 15.3m in length by 8.9m in width over all; it is gable-ended, and the SW gable is crowned by a simple birdcage belfry which houses a bell and has a stepped pyramidal roof.
The porch, the fenestration and much of the interior date from the late 19th-century remodelling. The windows are round-headed and incorporate a pair of three-light Venetian-style openings in the NW side-wall. The porch-window and the lintelled doorway have hood-moulds, and the door-threshold appears to be an inverted block of V-jointed or rusticated masonry in reuse. Inside the church, a pulpit with panelled front and balustraded stair stands at the NE end fronting an arrangement of plain bench pews; a loft at the SW end is carried on wooden columns with stop-chamfered arrises.
RCAHMS 1984, visited August 1977.