The Kintyre Forum

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:11 pm**

I can remember the curch on the site of the now Tesco supermarket. I can never remember being in it or it even having a minister or any services from it, i can remember that the BB's used to be run from it.

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:38 pm**

P/man

The church stood where the Tesco car park is. The distillary warehouse stood where the supermarket is today.

Prior to Lochend church being built in 1868 the original Lochend house stood there. It was a small Georgian cottage, not very grand. The mcKinlay family lived there in the 1850's

hoots

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:31 pm**

The church was demolished in 1985, the last minister there I think was a Mr MacPhee.

PETEWICK

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 8:42 pm**

Put a search for Lochend Church Campbeltown really interesting that the stain glass windows are now in New Zealand. Can remember being in the church on many occasions. We always used the school for end of term services. Not totally sure if this is definately Lochend Church Campbeltown they are talking about. They spelt Campbeltown with two "L "s.

www.stjohnsinthecity.org.nz/about/complex.htm

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 9:02 pm**

The Lochend Church. Remember it well. And the distillery warehouse next door. Can you remember the lane that ran between the two of them - took you from the church through to Lady Mary Row at the bottom of Broad Street. Think it got the name of "the wee close", but can't quite remember if that's right. But used it frequently when I was living in the town. Half way up the lane there was also a cottage. Lochend church was always used for school end of term services - minister Mr McPhee- as well as brownies etc. It was quite sad coming back to my wee toon and finding some of the places I remembered gone.

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 9:04 pm**

That is really interesting Lorna - it is amazing what you can find on the internet!

I found this picture too - it is from Malky's website.

http://www.campbeltownloch.com/town2/lochendchurch.htm

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 10:21 pm**

Because the Campbeltown Loch site uses frames, that link to the photo of Lochend church above, will actually take you to the front page (it's to load the navigation frame).

Either use the Campbeltown 2 link and find the Church at the bottom of the next screen or do a search - the site is fully searchable. Someday, I'll update that site for Russell :roll:

Malky

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 11:00 pm**

Eddie Ted

Posted: **Sun Jan 15, 2006 11:08 pm**

I remember the church from my visit in 1974. What a terrible shame it had to be removed. As has been said, the stain glass windows were beautiful.

Posted: **Sat Jan 21, 2006 12:28 pm**

I was christened in Lochend Church and my name is on the Baptismal Scroll that used to hang in the one of the big back rooms where they held the Bible Classes. I was also a Sunday School teacher (in my younger days). Okay, stop laughing! It's true!

My Grannie, Annie Dewar, used to drag us to church there every Sunday and I remember having to say Good Morning to the Big McPhee, who used to scare the bejeezus out of me. I wonder, was he really that big, or was it because I was so wee at the time???

Davie Drysdale and his family used to live in the house right next to it.

The last time I was home, in 1992, I went through the toon to go have a bevvy at the Glue Pot and found the place flattened. I sat on the wee wall on the green side and started to greet! My brother thought I had lost my mind!

I do, especially remember the beautiful windows. When the big McPhee was talking about the miracles of Jesus, you could look up into the windows, and if it was a nice sunny Sunday morning, the sun would shine down through the windows onto the congregation. Ach, what memories you have got to get nudged out of your noggin' when somebody else brings up a good subject like this one!

I am glad that the windows are in use now, for they are beauties.

I knew that one of the local photographers took a bunch of photos of them and was selling them somewhere on the Longrow. Does anybody know who it was, and if they are still willing to make prints to sell?

I would certainly love to buy one. Does anyone know what happened to the Baptismal Scroll or any of the other sundries of the church. I remember it had a beautiful new organ!!!!!!!!!

So there y' :cry:

are, and I'm off tae hae anuther wee greet! :cry:

Posted: **Sat Jan 21, 2006 1:32 pm**

i went to school with the daughters of the Rev McPhee (Claire and Kirsty), haven't seen or heard about them since the day they left the toon.

Lochend Church was our family church where all the Mason family went too. Mum has a photo of Gordon,David and myself outside the church, it is quite funny as the boys are wearing matching knitted jumpers, i wonder if Davie would like it to be on down memory lane!!!!!! :oops:

Posted: **Sat Jan 21, 2006 2:16 pm**

Linda:

All the Dewars sat on the back pew on the left side and my granny Dewar used to give us Polo Mints to shut us up during Big McPhee's sermons. But some of us were off early into the Sunday school so we didn't get to hear to much of it - more's the pity.

Was the Minister really that big, or was it just me? I remember we all had to shake his hand when we left the church.

Posted: **Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:11 am**

That is very interestin Pete Reek very interesting indeed. You should be writing for the Courier

Pete Reek wrote:The Lochend Church was demolished by McFadyen's and it was a great shame to see it being destroyed.
The windows did indeed go to New Zealand as the family that donated them to the church originally are now domiciled there I believe. They were made in Edinburgh and were very special, as everyone that saw them would I'm sure agree. The colours were very rich and vibrant and the detail was superb.They were by far the finest stained glass windows I have ever seen. A specialist firm came to town to remove them and crate them for shipping. Mick Martin from the firm W.F.M. was in charge of that side of the operation if my memory serves me right, and I am pretty certain that he was in fact an elder in the church. The "Campbelltown" they went to was spelt with the two L' I have used, and I think there is another one the same in Australia.
The pulpit and some of the pews were removed and taken to a new church being built somewhere in the north of Scotland. They were made from Pitch Pine as was a lot of stuff in Campbeltown it seems.
The bell was very difficult to remove from the tower owing to the condition of the stair leading up to it. As it neared the top there was no rail on the outside, so very scary. The figure of 80 ft up ( dare I say it?) rings a bell!! It had to be lowered using wire ropes and Tirfir's, and that itself was quite an acheivement.
A team of steeplejacks came in to do the specialised stuff on the actual steeple and Rab Brown from the chip shop went up with his video camera
and probably has the video of that to this day. Imagine the view? Rab came by pretty much daily to record the operation. Josie Brown also went up to the top with the steeplejacks.
The rest was knocked down by the local lads and was hard dirty work. The main church area was in itself very high, and I'm sure the marks made by my fingernails hanging on were left on the wood as we stripped the roof.
The stone from inside the main body of the church, columns etc was a very light coloured sandstone, and it was just dumped. I thought that perhaps it would make a nice fireplace, so I cut it into blocks the size of bricks and built my fireplace with them. I like to think that there is not another like it, but I know of maybe two built with the same stone, but random pieces rather than brick size.
Mr Jimmy Rioch, who was a Clerk of Works told me the exact quarry it came from, but for the life of me I can't remember which one.
It was a fine building, but without a substantial congregation it just couldn't survive.

Posted: **Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:40 pm**

I went to playgroup there, along with many of my classmates from Castlehill. A Mrs. Thomson (Karen Thomsons Mum?) was one of the playgroup leaders/helpers at the time. I only have a few wee memories!

Posted: **Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:23 pm**

Pete Reek, show us a photo of your fireplace. I bet it looks great!

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