St. Adamnan’s Church History

“I die an unworthy member of the Episcopal Church of Scotland.”  So said James Stewart, better known as James of the Glen, or Seumas a’ Ghlinne, towards the end of his speech from Cnap a’ Chaolais scaffold on Wednesday, 8th. November 1752 prior to his judicial murder for a crime with which he was hardly connected.

On Friday, 6th and Sunday, 8th. July 1770 Robert Forbes, Episcopal Bishop of Moray and Caithness, confirmed over 400 people at Ballachulish including 55 from Duror.  He also baptised about 150 people but where they came from is not recorded.

In the First Statistical Report Rev. Donald McNicol, minister of Lismore, wrote “it is most difficult to ascertain exactly deaths, births or marriages in these extensive parishes on account of the great number of Episcopalians and secretaries in Appin.”

The history of the Episcopal Church goes back a long way, really right to the reformation, but it was not until 1848 that an Episcopal Church was built in Duror.  The site of one Scots acre was donated by feu-charter dated 7th. January 1846 by Charles Stewart of Ardsheal.  The charter was made “in favour of Rt. Rev. David Low, Bishop of the United Diocese of Moray, Ross and Argyll and The Isles and his successors for the purpose of erecting a Parsonage House for Duror and Portnacrois, as well as a chapel for the performance of Divine Service according to the rites of the Scottish Episcopal Church but for no other purpose whatever.”  The Church and Rectory had been built by July 1848 at a cost of £800 mainly by members of the congregation, mos5 of whom were employed by the Ardsheal Estate.

The original building was rectangular in shape with a roof of Ballachulish slate with an Earth floor.  It had room for 80 people.  It is probable that the vestry was built at the same time.  Before consecration the new Bishop of Argyll and The Isles, Ewing, got the laird of Ardsheal to annul some of the conditions of the feu-charter and this was done in a document dated 26th. July 1848.  It is assumed that consecration took place in September of that year as St. Adamnan’s day is 23rd. September and it is after that saint that the church is named.  Initially the Church was run jointly with Holy Cross, Portnacrois.

St. Adamnan’s was the ninth abbot of Iona.  He was born in 624 A.D. and died on 23rd. September 704.  He is known for his Vitae Columbae, the biography of St. Columba.  He also wrote a description of the Holy Places of Palestine from material gained from the French Bishop Arculf who had been forced to shelter in Iona from a storm on his way home from Palestine.  He also wrote his Law of the Innocents freeing women and children from active participation in war.

The porch was added in 1871 to the design of the rector of the time, Donald Rankin, who had appealed the year before for funds to carry out repairs to the Church and the Rectory.  By that time the debts on the buildings had been cleared by the lairds of Ardsheal and Ballachulish.

The chancel and pulpit were added in 1911/12 as a memorial to Bishop Chinnery-Haldane who had preached his last sermon on 24th. September 1905.  Th architects were Messrs. Eden and Hodgson of London and the builder was Mr. John MacInnes of Ballachulish   As the granite quarries at Kentallen were no longer in operation dressed Aberdeen granite was supplied and executed by Mr. Edgar Gould of Aberdeen.  The slates used were Welsh greys.  The cost of £600 was defrayed by the congregation.  The church now seated 64 people.

The East Window, the tracery of which is shaped like a thistle, is in three parts.  The central part was installed in 1913 and the side panels in1919.  It was thought that the design was by Sir Ninian Comper, the last of the great Scottish Gothic Architects but recent research has suggested that it was designed by F.C. Eden who had employed Comper to produce some windows for him.  These windows do not have the Comper signature of a strawberry and there are some stylistic differences. The Eden order book contains two orders for stained glass, 1913 and 1919.

The central panel shows the Virgin and Child.  It was paid for by the congregation.  The left panel is in memory of Alexander Patrick Cameron of Ardsheal who died in 1929.  This shows St. Patrick.  The right panel is of St. Columba and is in memory of Charles Stewart of Achara who died in 1916.  In smaller parts of the window are several religious emblems such as a descending dove and a pelican.  On the right side of the chancel is another stained glass window probably by Eden and Hodgson showing to the left St. Bridget and to the right St. Adamnan’s.  This window was presented by Dean Burrows in 1929 in memory of his aunt, Mary H.A. Burrows.  The south window is in memory of Angus MacColl and his wife, Elizabeth, and their son, Dugald, who was killed on active service in 1917.  This was made by Abbott and Company of Liverpool in 1920.

A wooden floor was replaced with a concrete one in about 1950. Electricity was installed in 1953 when the North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board brought electricity to Duror for the first time.

The organ is probably the oldest playable pipe organ in Scotland.  It is said to have been played on by Handel but this is doubtful.  When in Aberdeen Dr. Samuel Johnson heard music on “an admirable organ.”  Although tradition says this may have been our organ this also is probably incorrect.  Bernard Smith was appointed King’s Organ maker in 1681.  Markings on many of the organ pipes are certainly his.  Much of the casework, pipe work and some of the mechanism can be attributed to him.  It was altered by John Snetzler in the early 18th. century and by Donaldson of York later. Recently it has been subjected to a thorough reappraisal by “Sowne of Organe,” a group who are researching historical organs in Scotland and it is expected that more information may be forthcoming from this research.  Its early whereabouts are uncertain; London, Edinburgh or Leith, Dundee and Arbroath have all been postulated as places where it might have been installed.  It was in St. Andrew’s Church, Aberdeen in 1792 before being installed in the Rosse Episcopal Chapel in Fort William in 1817.   When St. Andrew’s Church in Fort William was built this organ was transferred to Duror.   Originally constructed with two manuals at some time pedals were added.  The keyboard was replaced by Mr. Wardle of Aberdeen on its transfer to Duror.  At that time the woodwork for the pedalboard and bellows was constructed on site by Donald Campbell of Fort William.  The cost of this was £100 and was paid for by Mr. Davy of Spean Bridge.  An electric blower was added in 1978 when the organ underwent major restoration by Michael Macdonald of Glasgow who still maintains the organ on an annual basis.  The original hand-blown lever has been retained and can be used in an emergency or when authenticity is required.  At present the instrument has one manual keyboard of 52 notes and 7 stops, four of which draw in separate treble and bass sections.  There is also a pedal keyboard with nom stops of its own but is used to pull down the 14 corresponding keys at the bass and of the manual.  There is a total of 376 pipes of which the largest 23 are displayed in the case.

The original altar is of bevelled granite and is built into the wall of the chancel and is held in front by two pillars.  The oak reredos was added in 1885 and has a tabernacle at the centre.  A separate communion table has been installed in the last couple of decades and enables the celebrant to face the congregation.

On each wall of the chancel there is a wooded cross.  That on the right is in memory of “Capt. Bertrand Stewart, West Kent Yeomanry.  Brought from the graveyard in France.”  Capt. Stewart was the first TA Officer to be killed in the First World War.  On the left is a memorial to to “L/Cpl Dugald MacColl. Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. Missing, September 20th.1917.”  He is also remembered in the south window.

On the left wall of the nave is a memorial to “Charles Stewart VIII of Ardsheal, his niece Anna Rebecca Charlotte Stewart, wife of Miles Lockhart and of her grand-nephew James Haldane Stewart Lockhart, K.C.M.G., Ll.D.  James was born at Ardsheal 1858, Died in London 1937.”  On the right wall there is a small memorial tablet to the Stewarts of Achara.  

The font, made of granite, was made by a member of the congregation in the first half of the twentieth century.  The cover is of solid oak.

Over the door from the nave to the vestry there is a crucifix.  The body of Christ was donated by David Stewart of Achara and this was placed on the cross by the Rev. Adrian Fallows.

The silver ewer is inscribed “Rosse Church< Fort vWilliam, 1817.  Presented to St. Adamnan’s Church, Duror after the erection of St. Andrew’s, Fort William, 1880.”

The Oxford Chalice and Paten were presented by Mrs. D. Macintosh, West End Hotel, Fort William and her friends per Canon MacColl, Fort William in memory of Miss Mary Cameron, who died at Cambridge, 26th. May 1897.  Also at the same time a pocket Communion Set of vessels consisting of a silver chalice, paten, spoon two glass cruets with silver mounted stoppers, in pious memory of Rev. Donald Rankin, late incumbent of St. Adamnan’s Church, Duror from 1862 - 1879 was presented.  There is also a paten to the memory of Peter Parnell who was drowned crossing the Tasman Sea.  Relatives still live in Cuil.

Pewter Chalice and Paten.  The chalice holds a pint and the paten is in proportion.  They were probably used to celebrate Holy Communion before the church was built when celebrations were often held in private houses.

The pulpit cushion is blue silk velvet with gold and cream diamond lace, edged with old silk cord with tassels.  This was bought by Canon Benwell in 1912.  

Behind the church stood the Episcopal School.  This was a building of corrugated iron lined with wood.  This started life in Portree where it had served as a temporary church before the building of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church there.  It then housed the Episcopal School there.  It had accommodation for 50 pupils.  It was moved to Duror where it was not under government inspection and was solely supported by Bishop Chinnery-Haldane.  The school-mistress was a Miss Mackenzie who received a salary of £20 a year.  In 1905 it received a good report from the Diocesan Inspector (Rev. G.R. Vallings) who “doubted if any better results could be produced out of the children who attend it.”  On the death of the bishop the church was closed.  The structure was sold to the Ardsheal Estate in the 1930s for £100 and was transferred to Kentallen where it can be seen on the right hand side of the entrance to the Ardsheal Drive.  Before the erection of the Kentallen and Duror Community Centre it was often used as the community hall where , amongst other things, the Highlands and Island. Film Guild came regularly to show fairly recently released films.  It now stands idle.

The church celebrated its centenary in 1948 with the publication of a pamphlet from which much of the above information has been drawn.  Further information has been obtained from the draft document of Mrs. Fiona Rice, wife of a former rector.  The rectory was sold in 2005.  In 2009 the church became part of the linked charges of the West Highland Region along with St. Paul’s, Kinlochleven, St. Mary’s, Glencoe, St. John’s, Ballachulish, St. Bride’s, Onich and Holy Cross, Portnacrois.

All but five of the rectors are commemorated by photographs.  Of the first three, Rev. Duncan Mackenzie (1841-1854), Rev. Donald Mackenzie (1854-1862) and Rev. Donald Rankin (1862-1879) there are no photographs nor are any known of two during the latter part of World War II , Rev. W. Sillery (1843-1944) and Rev. F.R.C. Palmer (1945- 1946).  The other rectors were Rev. Canon Dugald Mackenzie (1879-1905), Rev. Canon E.J.H. Benwell (1906-1929) Synod Clerk, Very Rev. C.W.R. Lloyd (1929-19400 Dean of Argyll and The Isles, Rev. Canon C.L. Broun (1941-1943), Rev. J.H. Benyon Hopkins (1946-1959), Rev. R.G. Paterson (1959-1962), Rev. R. Callow (1962-1965), Rev. P. Hutchinson (1965-1970), Rev. Canon B.S.T (John) Simpson (1970-1980).  Rev. R.R. Graham (1980-1984), Rev. Canon David Day (1984-2002), Rev. Peter Rice (2003-2008), Rev. Adrian Fallows (2009-2014), Rev. Amanda Fairclough (2017 - present).  Rev. Dugald Mackenzie on occasions travelled to Onich to preach in Gaelic.  He was the last Gaelic speaking rector.  Rev. Benyon Hopkins, when the congregation consisted solely of his wife, held the service in Welsh.  Many priests have helped out from time to time, including Rev. W.V. Awdry, author of the Thomas the Tank Engine stories.

Currently a service is held at St. Adamnan’s every third week at 11.00 a.m.but reference should be made to the Facebook page of the Scottish Episcopal Church, West Highland Region as there are exceptions to a strict three weekly schedule.

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