2. EILEAN MOR.
A small island lying off the Knapdale coast. “A little way up from the landing-place stands the half-roofless, though in other respects scarcely at all ruinated, shell of ‘Kilvicoharmaig, the Mother Church of Knapdale,’ surrounded by an open and nearly obliterated burying-ground. Its external plan ([Fig. 53]) is a simple oblong, measuring 37 feet 5 inches in length and 20 feet in width. Internally the building is divided into chancel and nave, the division being a gabled wall open by a semi-circular arch composed of long thin slates. An apartment, which was probably a comparatively modern contrivance, appears to have gone over the nave, as there is a fireplace and chimney in the upper part of the west wall, not bearing marks of antiquity.
“The chancel is covered by a low waggon vault, between which and the external roof there is a chamber lighted by a square window in the apex of the west gable. In the east end of the chancel ([Fig. 54]) are two small round-headed windows placed considerably apart, the north one, like the window at the neighbouring Kiels, having its interior sill underdrawn and levelled for an altar.
Fig. 53.
“In the interior south wall is a large round-headed recess, containing the tomb and headless effigy of an ecclesiastic, and in the wall opposite are two smaller recesses of the same kind—the eastern one having a window behind and a square lychnoscopic-looking aperture on one side near the ground.
“The chancel evidently belongs to an early period, and in style mostly resembles Norman, though some alterations (designed, there can be no doubt, to procure more shelter) have somewhat modified the pristine character of its detail. Originally the entrance was by a round doorway in the north side of the nave; but this has been built up, and another one, square and smaller, opened through the wall opposite. The window lights have all been reduced by the inserting of a slate pierced with a short and narrow lancet—that on the south, in the east end, plain
Fig. 54.—Church of St. Carmaig, Eilean Mor. Exterior Elevation of East End.
pointed, the other one trefoiled. But the most important alteration is in the chancel arch ([Fig. 55]), which has been lessened by blocking to a small flat-topped doorway with a square hole right through the wall on each side of it; over each of these holes, within the chancel, is an ambry of the usual square form.”
In a recess among the rocks are remains of a rectangular building, measuring internally 11 feet 3 inches by 10 feet 10 inches—the walls rudely built without cement, and more than 4 feet in thickness. This is the Chapel of St. Carmaig, “made by his own hands” soon after he came to the place for retirement and devotion. The entrance to the building
Fig. 55.—Exterior West Elevation of Chancel.
is a narrow flat-headed doorway of primitive character in the east wall. This structure communicates with a natural cave, and probably existed as a religious cell long before the neighbouring Kilvicoharmaig was erected.[100]