Inverchaolain Church

The first, pre-Reformation Parish Church of Inverchaolain was built on the hillside about 200 yards above today's building and was dedicated, like may sites in the West of Scotland, to St Bride, Abbess of Kildare (467 - 525). This present church is the fourth; the second was built in 1745, the third in 1812. This last was destroyed by fire on Sunday 9 April, 1911. The coping-stone of the original church is built into the south wall of today's church, above the entrance door.

It's hard to imagine how Inverchaolain must have looked in the years after the 1745, when the population of the area was 944 - today there is a farm, one sizeable house and the Clan Lamont house as well as the former schoolhouse that appears at the moment to have no-one living there. The graveyard is a peaceful place with some ancient graves - and in the past, coffins were carried over the Coffin Trail from Glen Kin to be buried here.

Today, only two services a year are held here and the people who clean it are disturbed mainly by bats.

The name Inverchaolain is derived from the Gaelic "Inbhir-chaolaoin" meaning "the mouth of the narrow stream".