Kilmodan Carved Stones

Inside a small stone aisle built onto the side of Kilmodan Church, a row of carved grave slabs lies gathered together, their weathered surfaces still bearing the marks of medieval carvers working in a distinctive West Highland style. Rather than standing scattered singly across the surrounding churchyard, as such slabs often do elsewhere, the Kilmodan stones were brought together under one roof, making them easier to view side by side and easier to shelter from the weather.

The churchyard itself sits at Clachan of Glendaruel, a small settlement on the Cowal Peninsula in Argyll and Bute, on Scotland’s west coast. Glendaruel has long formed a route through the hills of Cowal, and the church at its heart has served the surrounding community for generations, with the burial aisle added as a way of keeping the carved stones together rather than left exposed individually to rain and lichen.

Today the collection is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland, the public body responsible for looking after Scotland’s protected historic sites, which lists the stones as a monument in their own right rather than simply an adjunct to the working church beside them. That status reflects the value placed on West Highland carved grave slabs as a body of medieval sculpture, even where, as at Kilmodan, little else is recorded about the individuals the stones were carved to commemorate.