Ballyhennan remembered
A FEW weeks ago I visited a part of Argyll less familiar to me than many others, and found an old graveyard containing numerous stones of interest to members of the MacFarlane clan at Ballyhennan – a settlement too small to be called a village, lying half way between Tarbert on Loch Lomond and Arrochar on Loch Long.
It appears on General Roy’s military map of 1750 where it is shown as Killchenn, whose first element indicates an early church site. Baile is a Gaelic word meaning a farm or village, but the origin of ‘hennan’ has been lost, perhaps it was a saint’s name.
The adjacent church, now a restaurant, was built as a Free Church in 1844. With the exception of one slab containing a sword and fretwork, which may have been carved in the 1500s, most of the gravestones in the graveyard date from the early to mid-1700s and include a number of carved table tombs consisting of heavy horizontal slabs supported by four or six stone legs.
These were expensive to produce by hand and generally mark the last resting places of the area’s most prominent and wealthiest families and tradesmen who could afford to engage professional masons.
The predominant surname is MacFarlane, which is hardly surprising as they owned the lands around Arrochar from 1225, when it was granted to them by the Earl of Lennox.
An area near Ballyhennan Church is believed to have been the site of a fight between the MacFarlanes and Haco’s Vikings, who pulled their boats across this short isthmus, though the exact site has not yet been identified.
In 1785, the MacFarlanes were forced to sell their lands to help pay their debts and, today, most of the surrounding land is owned by the Colquhouns of Luss.
The MacFarlanes had a reputation as cattle rustlers, who would hide their booty in the mountains near Loch Sloy, hence the clan’s battle cry: ‘Loch Sloy!’ As their rustling was generally done at night, a full moon was known locally as ‘MacFarlane’s lantern’.
Later, Arrochar, Tarbet and Succouth were on the busy drove routes along which cattle from Argyll and Inverness-shire were driven to the great fairs, or trysts, at Falkirk and Dumbarton. These traditional routes were later improved by General Wade and his colleagues who were charged by the government with building a road system throughout the Highlands to allow the easy movement of troops, following the defeat of Prince Charles Edward Stewart and his Jacobite army at Culloden in 1746.
Although most of the stones in Ballyhennan have been photographed and plotted on a plan, many inscriptions have not been taken down. Where stones date to a time before statutory records began, it is important they are noted before they are lost to wear and tear from grass-cutting machinery, frost, snow and rain. The Macfarlane clan society would be doing its members a great service in the future by employing someone to do this.
According to the Arrochar, Tarbert and Adlui Heritage Group, the great surge of evangelical fervour which poured forth in Scotland as a result of the Disruption in 1843 divided the Church of Scotland.
Money poured in for a general building fund, and after an open-air communion service on the first Sunday of August 1843, it was decided to petition the Free Church Presbytery for approval to build a church and call a minister.
Application was made to Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, the proprietor of Arrochar, for a site, which was readily granted, close to the burying ground of the parish at Ballyhennan. This proximity to a burial ground by a Free Church is unusual.
A contract for erecting the church was given to Dunoon builder Alexander Stewart. It was to seat 250 at a cost of £240; the members of the congregation to cart all materials. The work commenced on January 10, 1844, and, incredibly, it was finished on April 11 the same year, and the contractor fully paid.
Colin Mackenzie, who was then the minister of Sheidag, but had been ‘outed’ by his laird, accepted the call to the Free Church, Arrochar, and was inducted on April 18, 1844, one week after the church was completed.
The session records of Arrochar Free Church do not record when he left, but on December 8, 1882, his death is noted and he is referred to as senior minister.
In 1869, the second minister of the Free Church was ordained. He was a Mr Kippen, who ministered there until his death on October 26, 1881. A set of stained-glass windows at the rear of the nave of the church commemorates his ministry.
On April 13, 1882, John Robson Elder, was translated from Cromarty to Arrochar Free Church and ministered there until his death in May 1897.
He was succeeded on October 21, 1897, by the Rev A P Telfer, during whose time the Free Church union with the United Presbyterians took place and, from November 4, 1899, the local church became the United Free Church and a member of the Dumbarton United Free Presbytery.
On May 5, 1904, it is recorded that the last issue of communion tokens by Arrochar Free Church took place. The Rev Telfer was succeeded by Mr Richard D E Stevenson, during whose ministry the basis and plan of union between the United Free Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland was submitted and approved.
In September 1929, at a joint meeting with the parish church, it was agreed that the new names of the churches would be (Parish) Tighness and (United Free) Ballyhennan.
Mr Stevenson was the last minister of the Ballyhennan Church. From 1947, both the United Free and the parish church were ministered by him. The United Free Church was closed in 1966.
Access to the area became easier with the building of the West Highland Railway line between 1890s and 1894 though this ‘progress’ came at a price: a total of 37 navvies died near Arrochar, Tarbet or Ardlui during the construction of the railway. They were buried, not in the graveyard, but in a piece of ground which is little short of a mass grave outside the northeast wall, presumably because their names and religion were unknown at the time of death.
It was not until 1994 that their existence was even acknowledged and marked by a plaque erected by Arrochar West Highland Railway Committee.
The Victorian era also saw a steady stream of paddlesteamers bringing visitors up Loch Long from Glasgow to Arrochar, from where they could visit the local hotels, or travel across to Tarbet to catch another steamer to explore the scenery of Loch Lomond.
Loch Long has influenced local fortunes further, once part of a thriving herring-fishing industry and, more recently, as the site of a torpedo-testing range which closed in 1986.
The villages of Arrochar, Tarbet, Succoth and nearby Ardlui have a thriving and active heritage group, which they are to be admired for.
What a pity more communities in Argyll wouldn’t follow this encouraging example.