The High Kirk

This is the church in the heart of old Dunoon, at the top of the Castle Gardens. It's part of the view from the ferry approaching Dunoon pier, and although it now rejoices in the unwieldy name of Dunoon Old and St Cuthbert's, everyone calls it the High Kirk.

Not that it is at all "high" in the ecclesiastical sense: this is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and although the odd candle may appear at atmospheric moments there has never been any attempt any time I have been there to mitigate the utilitarian approach to worship that drove me from the church of my family when I was in my teens. 

The present building probably stands on the site of a much earlier church which until 1688 was the Cathedral Church of both the Roman Catholic and Episcopalian Bishops of Argyll. Towards the end of the 18th century the building became dilapidated and was demolished, the stone being used to build Gillespie Graham's Late Decorated Gothic Revival church of 1816. The belfry tower was added in 1839 and the church was lengthened and widened by Andrew Balfour in 1909. Chancel window 1939 by Douglas Hamilton. Gravestones of the 13th and 17th century in the kirkyard.