McColl's Grave

The old church of Kilchoan, St Congan's, is perched on the hill overlooking the bay. It has a wonderful site, protected from a north wind by a line of trees and looking out across the Sound and along the western shore across Ormsaigmore and Ormsaigbeg. Behind stands the bulk of Glasbheinn, clothed in the golden brown of dead bracken.

The Annals of the Parish, a super booklet available from Kilchoan Community Centre, tells us that St Congan's was built in the years immediately after 1761, during the ministry of Kenneth MacCauley. By 1827 it was a ruin, and was replaced by the new church in the following two years, though burials continued in the old churchyard until recently. Today it is an ancient monument.

Immediately in front of the main entrance stands this fenced burial plot. It contains a slab, too encrusted with moss and lichen for any inscription to be visible, which covers the remains of one of Ardnamurchan Estate's tacksmen, McColl by name, who is reputed to have been responsible for some of the more brutal evictions that occurred in this area. It is said that a bedridden woman who was carried out of her house in Ormsaigbeg cursed him, so that no grass would ever grow on his grave.

The truth behind this story, as with so many that came out of that bitter period of Scottish history, is lost in time, but McColl or those who loved him certainly feared that ill would come of his resting place, as they covered the body with a massive stone slab and surrounded it with an eight-foot cast iron railing which has no entrance. But the curse must have worked for, while the rest of the graveyard is remarkable for the richness of the grass that covers it, not a blade of grass grows on McColl's grave.

The Annals suggests that no grass grows because of the size of the slab that covers McColl, but plenty of other plants do, including a rich crop of blackberries.

St Congan's is reached by walking up the drive past the old rectory, now Meall mo Chridhe, a restaurant with rooms.