The little church at Sand of Udrigil, which we may call the chapel of Sand, is commonly believed to have been originally erected by St Columba himself. In 1713 George Mackenzie of Gruinard, who is said to have built a little church at Udrigil, prayed Mr Morrison, the refugee minister of Gairloch, to preach there. Whether this was the same church we cannot be sure; tradition says George Mackenzie only thatched and repaired the ancient church. After this time the ministers of Gairloch periodically preached at this little church until at least the end of the eighteenth century.
There was an old church at Culinellan near Kenlochewe; the date of its erection is uncertain. The Rev. Daniel Mackintosh, in his paper in the Old Statistical Account, refers to this place of worship as existing in 1792.
CHAPEL OF SAND OF UDRIGIL.
The church at Tollie Croft, now called Cruive End, is not likely to have been of any antiquity. In 1733 the kirk-session of Gairloch petitioned the presbytery to enlarge the "chapel at Pollew," and the presbytery agreed to do so. This was probably the place of worship at Tollie Croft close to Poolewe. It was no doubt the church where Mr Thomas Pennant heard the Rev. John Dounie preach in 1772, for it was close to the place where he would land from his boat on Loch Maree (see [Appendix B]); the Rev. D. Mackintosh mentioned it in 1792. Old people now living remember the Rev. James Russell preaching in this little church as lately as 1826. At that time Duncan Mackenzie, the innkeeper at Poolewe, previously butler to Sir Hector Mackenzie at Flowerdale House, used to read the Scriptures to the people in the Cruive End church pending Mr Russell's arrival from Gairloch. This church would be very convenient for the minister of Gairloch when he had his manse only a mile away at Cliff, Poolewe, as was the case between 1759 and 1803.
The turf-built church in Tollie bay, where the Rev. J. Morrison used to hold his humble services, was only a temporary expedient during his short and troublous incumbency.
The old chapel of Inverewe, on the east side of the river Ewe, close to the former mansion-house of the Kernsary estate, seems to belong to the seventeenth century, judging from the appearance its ruins now present, but there is no record whatever of its history. The Rev. Kenneth Mackenzie, proprietor of Kernsary, preached there, as we have seen, during some part of the seventeenth century.
The present church of Poolewe was completed in 1828.
If there was a rectory, parsonage, or manse in Gairloch before the Reformation, it must have then ceased to be church property. The Rev. Farquhar MacRae, who became vicar of Gairloch about 1608, lived at Ardlair, on the north-eastern shore of Loch Maree. Ardlair is near Letterewe, where dwelt the ironworkers for whose special behoof Mr MacRae was sent to Gairloch by Lord Mackenzie of Kintail; and it may have been part of the arrangement under which Sir George Hay acquired the woods of Letterewe from Lord Mackenzie for the ironworks, that his lordship should allow Mr MacRae the use of a house at Ardlair, which was also on his property.