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Latitude: 56.2858 / 56°17'9"N
Longitude: -4.7077 / 4°42'27"W
OS Eastings: 232490
OS Northings: 713672
OS Grid: NN324136
Mapcode National: GBR 0F.7Y3J
Mapcode Global: WH2KS.N8FJ
Entry Name: Pulpit Rock, preaching site, south of Ardlui
Scheduled Date: 5 November 2004
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Source ID: SM10972
Schedule Class: Cultural
Category: Ecclesiastical: open air preaching place
Location: Arrochar
County: Argyll and Bute
Electoral Ward: Lomond North
Traditional County: Dunbartonshire
The monument comprises a large rock outcrop into which a vestry was excavated in 1825, to accommodate the parish minister while he conducted openair services.
Pulpit Rock, or Clach nan Tarbh (the stone of the bulls), lies some 2km south of Ardlui. In 1825 parisioners living in the northern part of the Parish of Arrochar complained of the distance that they had to travel to church services, some 13km each way. The Minister, the Reverend Peter Proudfoot, responded to his parishioners' complaint saying that if they would build him a vestry he would come and preach to them on certain occasions. The parishioners cut and then blasted a hole in the rock large enough to accommodate the Minister, an Elder and the Precentor.
The shelter in the rock formed the vestry. It had a wooden door and was reached by a flight of steps. A wooden pulpit was fixed to a platform bolted on to the side of the rock. Services were held during the summer months for about 75 years until 1895 when a mission church was established in Ardlui. During the services the congregation sat on the ground around Pulpit Rock.
When the West Highland Railway was built it passed to the west of the rock, so avoiding this religious landmark.
The area to be scheduled comprises an area 35m E-W by 32m N-S which includes the rock and an area to the front of the rock, where evidence for the wooden pulpit might be expected to survive, as marked in red on the accompanying map extract.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Historically the monument is of national importance as a relatively late example of an open-air preaching site, and is a rare example of the modification of a natural site by blasting to provide a vestry.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Bibliography
The monument is recorded by RCAHMS as NN31SW 15.
References:
Friends of Loch Lomond Newsletter 2002, 4.
The Herald, 31 May 2002.
MacLeod D 1884, DUNBARTON, VALE OF LEVEN AND LOCH LOMOND: HISTORICAL, LEGENDARY, INDUSTRIAL AND DESCRIPTIVE, Dunbarton, 219.
Winchester H S pre 1918, TRADITIONS OF ARROCHAR AND TARBET AND THE MACFARLANES.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
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