Always something new....

I was in Colintraive late this morning (actually depositing  bottles in the bottle bank )  and I drove on through the village with the idea of taking a picture down the Kyles of Bute.

When I got to the church it occurred to me that I had never blipped it , so I parked and took a few shots of the exterior of what is a fine , small building.

As I was doing so I  noticed on the door a sign saying the church was open but when I turned the handle I was, I have to admit, a little surprised to find that such was indeed the case.   So I went in. 

I had , strangely, never been inside before , probably for lots of reasons - the main church for the part of the Glen where we live is at the Clachan, we are members of the Episcopal Church and not the Church of Scotland, and I have never been to a funeral , wedding or christening there being just some of them.

I was , I have to say,  charmed with what I saw.   It is beautifully proportioned, well kept with what must be the original box pews and has a range of memorials including the two I have used as extra pictures - one which records an  extraordinary 45 years of service by the late nineteenth, early twentieth century minister of the charge and the very simple war memorial which sits behind the low pulpit.

There is also a framed timeline that gives the names of the ministers since the church was built in 1840  and records the changes in status and denomination of the building from being a chapel of ease for the Inverchaolain Parish (built at the prompting of a local landowner who was concerned about the long and sometimes hazardous journey to Inverchaolain Church which lies across Loch Striven) to being a Free Church , established after the Disruption in 1842, then as a United Free Church from 1900 until the reunion with the Church of Scotland in 1929.

It is now part of Kilmodan Parish.