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Lamlash Parish Church will close its doors for the last time on Sunday October 29. Of all the churches closing on the island, it is the most important with a rich history and many unique features. Hugh Boag looks back at the church’s 137 years of worship.
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There are many unique features of the current Lamlash Chuch which was commissioned in 1886.
Perhaps the most striking is the massive campanile tower, at more than 90 feet high, which sits above this Gothic-style, red sandstone building. The tower hosts nine bells, the largest chime still existing cast for a Scottish church in a Scottish foundry.
The design of the bell tower by church architects H & D Barclay is believed to be based on St Mark’s Church tower in Venice, but the spire in Venice, although similar, is taller.
Inside it has a boarded, barrel-vaulted ceiling and carved wooden tripartite Gothic sedilia, which is fairly unusual in a Church of Scotland building. There are seven stained glass windows and a fine organ.
The grand design was in sharp contrast to the previous church of 1773 which was erected along the line of the road in front of the present church to accommodate a congregation of up to 500. The floor was gravel with wooden walkways.
At that time, and for another 100 years, these buildings served the whole east coast of Arran and at the annual Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper a tent had to be erected to house all the worshippers.
During the 19th century Arran, originally a crofting and fishing community, developed into a holiday resort as a result of steam navigation improving communications. The previous rather bare and austere kirk became out of date and in the early 1880s plans developed to build the present church.
Its erection was funded by the then chief heritor of the island, William, 12th Duke of Hamilton, and cost £4,000. It was opened at the beginning of 1886 and the Reverend Dr Norman Macleod, of St Stephen’s in Edinburgh, preached to a capacity congregation. The church then had seating for 600 people.
The law at that time required the heritor or landowner to provide a church and manse for the parish and it remained so until The Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act of 1925 provided for the transfer to the general trustees of all churches and manses. The title of the church was transferred in 1931.
It was originally known as Kilbride Parish Church, but after the closure of St George’s United Free Church in 1947 and the amalgamation of the two congregations, it was decided to change to the present name of Lamlash Parish Church.
In January 1994, the church was listed as a Grade A building by Historic Scotland. Grade A concerns buildings of national or international importance, either architectural or historic, or fine little-altered examples of some particular period, style or building type.
This is due to the other fine features of the church including the seven stained glass windows by Anning Bell, Meiklejohn, Gordon Webster and Christian Shaw. All the other windows are hand-painted, German cathedral glass.
The pipe organ is a fine instrument, which has attracted international celebrities to play. It was built by William Hill of Norman and Beard, London and installed in 1934.
One of the first recitals was given by Mr M A Henderson, organist to the University of Glasgow, who wrote to the kirk session stating: “In all my experience of organs, and I have played hunderds, I have never played a more beautiful or more perfect organ of its size that the one now installed in your church.”
In the front grounds are an ancient cross and baptismal font from the old monastery on Holy Isle in Lamlash Bay, linking the church back to its earliest Christian roots.
A history of the famous chuch bells
There are nine bells in Lamlash tower, all cast by John C Wilson & Co, Gorbals Brass and Bellfounders, Glasgow, in 1886. It is thought the original eight bells is the largest single ring of bells by this founder, with the same founder adding the ninth bell in 1913.
The church and five of the bells were a gift to the people of Lamlash by the 12th Duke of Hamilton and it opened on Sunday June 6 1886. The three other original bells were a gift from James Auldjo Jamieson, the Duke of Hamilton’s Commissioner.
The bells are rung by use of an Ellacombe chiming apparatus, which works by striking stationary bells with hammers. The bells are kept static, or “hung dead”, and a hammer strikes against the inside of the bell. Each hammer is connected by a rope to a fixed frame in the bell-ringing room. When in use, the ropes are taut and pulling one of the ropes towards the player will strike the hammer against the bell.
The chiming frame was invented by the Reverend Henry Ellacombe, who was a keen bellringer and vicar at Bitton, Gloucestershire. One feature of the Ellacombe apparatus is that it enables tunes to be rung on bells, rather than the familiar change ringing normally heard from church bells.
Lamlash Church and its famous bell tower which closes on Sunday. 01_B43lamlash_church_close
Church bell ringers Alison Page and Maureen Pattison beside the bell ringing mechanism in the bell tower in 2021. 01_B26bells02
The original founder’s plaque is still on the bell tower wall.
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Organist Douglas Bruce is to give a recital in Lamlash Church back in 2018. NO_B23organist01