Finding My Way on Skye

I was taken this week to see a lovely old ruin, of St John’s at Caroy. This was the first church built specifically for Episcopalian worship, in the 1830s.

I understand that the look and feel of worship in Skye’s parish churches changed in the early 19th century. Perhaps because this was a time of Evangelical revival. For whatever reason, Christians of a Episcopalian flavour, who had managed to worship in their parish churches, started to find this uncomfortable and cast around for alternatives. Hence the construction of this new church, which opened in 1838.

So the ruins seem venerable, but they are not really that old. What is also very interesting is that the church was only fully used for a few decades. By the 1850s, the centre of Episcopalian gravity was already moving towards Portree, where there was a ‘tin shack’ on the land where St Columba’s now stands. The permanent Portree church was finally built in the 1870s, by which time the contents of St John’s had been removed.

The old church is surrounded by a hillside graveyard which includes some quite modern graves and memorials. Some, memorials of Skye folk who actually died in far-flung corners of the Empire. One of the memorials is to Flora Swire, who died in the Lockerbie bombing, and whose family have been locally prominent for generations. A sturdy stone wall, is set below the level of the modern road, and then the memorials lie between paths that tumble down the hill, beset by snowdrops and overshadowed by trees, with the estuary coming up to the foot of the enclosing wall. I imagine this site was more accessible by boat than by land, back in the day.

A charming site, numinous. I am not convinced the ruin is quite safe, and will need to check that before wanting to use this for ministry. But perhaps this could be a good pilgrimage destination?