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Summary

Description

Loch Lomond And Trossachs National Park Planning Authority

St Fillans Chapel is an ancient and historically important ruin to the SE of St Fillans village, thought to be a 16th century building on the site of an earlier chapel founded by St Fillan. It sits next to St Fillans Hill, also known as Dundurn, a site of great religious significance to both Christians and Picts. The chapel is known to have been abandoned during the Reformation and has since served as the burial place of the Stewarts of Ardvorlich. A place of great historic and religious significance to the region, and associations with one of the most prominent local families.

The chapel is a small, rectangular plan rubble enclosure, roofless since 1890. The gabled ends are crowstepped and remain in-situ with projecting skewputts, initialled S and SA to the S (principal) elevation. There is some reconstruction to the wallheads, made flat with concrete. There are only 2 openings, a timber-lintelled doorway with a square window to the right, on the S elevation. The window may originally have been barred. A mixture of larger, squared rubble stones and thinner stones laid horizontally, form the margins and corners of the building. A plaque built into the interior S wall of the chapel confirms that the chapel is dedicated to St Fillan. On the interior gables a stone ledge projects from the wall at mid-height, whilst another horizontal channel further up the W gable shows where a ceiling may have existed pre-1890.

The burial ground is roughly heart-shaped in plan, and is bounded by a simple dry stane dyke roughly 1 metre high (this has been repaired with mortar in places). At the S edge of the Boundry Wall is a cast iron gateway (probably mid 19th century).

Gravestones of note include 17th century memorials to Major J Stewart (dated 1662), Robert Stewart (1680) and J Stewart (1698). A 1729 memorial stone portrays the Tree of Life on one side and Adam and Eve on the other.

Materials: random rubble; squared stones to crowstepped gables; carved rubble skewputts.

Statement of Special Interest

The cult of St.Fillan, who settled in West Perthshire is widespread in Scotland, especially around Strathearn, where there are several sites related to the saint. Next to the chapel is Dundurn, a hill fort which held a well and a 'seat' connected to the saint.

The chapel is thought to have been abandoned at the Reformation and since 1586 it has been used as the burial ground for the Stewarts of Ardvorlich. In 1890 the roof was removed as the interior had been 'dank and noisesome' (Porteous), and there are now some memorials located inside the chapel walls. At Dundurn Parish Church a round font stone, said to be taken from St Fillans Chapel, has been mounted on a wrought iron stand and continues to be used for baptisms today (2005).

References

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