Alexander Chisholm Blacksmith Gravestone Parish Church Graveyard Laggan Badenoch Scotland
Tour Scotland video of the Alexander Chisholm, Blacksmith, gravestone in the old Parish Church graveyard in Laggan on ancestry visit to Badenoch, Scottish Highlands. The surname Chisholm was first found in Roxburghshire where they held a family seat from very ancient times, some say well before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066 A.D.
St. Mary's Catholic Church Eskadale, Scotland
Few places can match the uniqueness of rural Highland churches -oases of tranquillity where man's spiritual need is complemented by the beauty of nature. For a visit that is both aesthetically and spiritually rewarding take the low road to Struy - a narrow winding road that seems to lead into a time-lock where the clear, sweeping river Beauly flows ribbon-like between banks of birches and plantations of firs. Beautiful Strathglass, incomparable in its ever-changing vistas and gentle melancholy. Suddenly, on top of a hillock, a building appears, dazzling in its white-washed harling, set with many-faceted windows: St Mary's of Eskadale, 'built on a scale of grandeur hitherto unknown in the Highlands.'
That the chapel was considered grand for its time betrays its denomination. All around, gravestones of its erstwhile priests, parishioners and benefactors tell of the faith of the dead. For St Mary's stands in one of the few districts in the Highlands where the inhabitants adhered to their Catholic faith, long after their Chief, The Chisholm, changed his allegiance. It is hard to believe that so large a Roman Catholic chapel was built as far back as 1827, only 34 years after the passing of the Catholic Relief Act which gave freedom of worship to Roman Catholics. Built by another Chief of the area, the 12th Lord Lovat, St Mary's is quite different from the few Catholic churches in existence at that time throughout the Highlands - usually barn-like structures, with no windows and a mud floor. No barn this, its windows filling the nave with a light that must have been a revelation to the tenants of the nineteenth century, the traceried rose window being added in the east gable in 1881: a constant source of wonder for the congregation of Eskadale who, at the turn of the century, numbered over 800.