Old Travel Blog Photograph Parish Church Kilmun Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the Parish Church in Kilmun near Dunoon, Scotland. In the 7th century, an Irish monk, St Munn, Fintán of Taghmon, founded a monastic community at Kilmun. The remains of a 12th century church are still visible. At the present site, a church building is recorded in the 13th century. By the 15th century, the significance of Kilmun as a local centre of Christianity was so great that the adjacent loch became known as the Holy Loch, and the powerful Clan Campbell adopted it as their spiritual home. From the 14th century, Dunoon Castle, a short distance away, was held by the Campbell family and in the 1440s Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochawe, later 1st Lord Campbell, the then chief of the clan, lived near Kilmun in a private residence named Strathechaig. When his eldest son Archibald died tragically in 1442, the young man was laid to rest at Kilmun. This marked the beginning of the tradition of Kilmun as Campbell burial place. As a settlement, Kilmun is substantially older than most of its neighbours on the Holy Loch. Like them, it developed as a watering place for Glasgow merchants after 1827, when a quay was built by the marine engineer David Napier. It was a regular stop for the Clyde steamer services until its closure in 1971.



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