Surprisingly little has changed in over one hundred years. Meall mo Chridhe, '1', the old Church of Scotland manse, has a flagpole and a well but the buildings are essentially the same. At '2', Dorlinn House, which we knew as the village Post Office when we came here 18 years ago, is marked as an inn. It was built at much the same time as another inn, the Salen Hotel, to a very similar design. The Steading, where Steading Holidays office is located, is marked just to the west, but the biggest change in that area today is the Old Golf Course development.
The church appears unchanged, though it was probably in better repair in those days, and in 1899 the village Post Office was in the house called Crobheinn, (at '3'). Kilchoan Hotel, at '4', which includes today's village pub, was Kilchoan Lodge, a shooting/fishing lodge for the Ardnamurchan Estate, sold off in 1948. To the east of the hotel, the Nurses Cottage is missing.
Kilchoan School, at '5', consisted of the stone building which is now the teacher's residence. In those days half of it was the classroom, the other half was for the teacher. On the other side of what is now Pier Road from the school a number of small buildings are marked all of which appear either to have gone or been reduced to ruin.
Buildings in section 58 of the 1899 map of Kilchoan:
ReplyDeleteIn the 1940s the small building on Pier Road opposite the corner of the school playground wall was occupied by an elderly woman, Mary Ann MacPhail.
The other building in section 58, possibly a dwelling house earlier, was by the 1940s used as a byre. The cows belonged to Sarah and Lachlan MacDonald, sister and brother, who lived at 3 on the map and ran the Post Office