page_title: Kilmacolm
section_title: Landmarks
hierarchical_section_title: Kilmacolm / Landmarks
caption_attribution_description: English: St Columba's Church (en:Church of Scotland) in the village of en:Kilmacolm. Taken from here and the work of Thomas Nugent.
context_page_description: Kilmacolm is a village and civil parish in the Inverclyde council area, and the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies on the northern slope of the Gryffe Valley, 7 ¹⁄₂ miles south-east of Greenock and around 15 miles west of the city of Glasgow. The village has a population of around 4,000 and is part of a wider civil parish which covers a large rural hinterland of 15,000 hectares containing within it the smaller settlement of Quarrier's Village, originally established as a 19th-century residential orphans' home.
  The area surrounding the village was settled in prehistoric times and emerged as part of a feudal society with the parish divided between separate estates for much of its history. The village itself remained small, providing services to nearby farm communities and acting as a religious hub for the parish. The name of the village derives from the Scottish Gaelic Cill MoCholuim, indicating the dedication of its church to St Columba. The parish church was mentioned in a papal bull of 1225 showing its subservience to Paisley Abbey, and it sits on the site of an ancient religious community dating to the 5th or 6th centuries.
context_section_description: Whilst the village has a long history, the majority of its significant architecture is Victorian and Edwardian in origin, beginning with the arrival of the railway in the village, its gentrification and the subsequent boom in population. Using a wide variation of styles, the parish contains a considerable number of listed and notable buildings.
  William Leiper's flamboyant Gothic Revival St Columba's Church is the most apparent Category A listed building in the village, with its tall saddleback tower modelled on the Church of St Nicholas in Caen, Normandy. Constructed between 1902 and 1905, it was the final church building of Leiper's career.
  The parish church (Old Kirk), mainly constructed in 1831 incorporating a 13th-century chancel, is B-listed and another example of the Gothic Revival style. The third listed church in the parish, Mount Zion Church (Quarrier's Village; 1888; Robert A Bryden) is also Category B listed and in the Scots Baronial style.
  The Cargill Centre, which since 2011 has served as the village's community centre, contains two Victorian former schoolhouses in the centre of the village. It contains a village hall, café and the Kilmacolm Library. Other notable non-residential listed buildings in the parish include Bridge of Weir Hospital built by William Quarrier, as a sanatorium for tuberculosis sufferers at the turn of the 20th century, in the free revivalist style and incorporating ecclesiastical references. The Hospital buildings are Category B listed, and have been converted into private flats. Shallot, the former mansionhouse of Adam Birkmyre which now accommodates the St Columba's Junior School, constructed in 1884, is also B-listed.
  In the countryside outside the village are the ruins of Duchal Castle, dating back to the 13th century and lending its name to the modern Duchal House and estate in the village. On a hill above the village lies the derelict remains of Balrossie School, formerly the Sailors' Orphans' Home. Of historical interest are preserved examples of significant anti-aircraft batteries dating back to the Second World War contained within the parish, and a Decontamination Centre built in case of gas attacks on the United Kingdom. There is also a narrow-gauge railway line formerly used for grouse-shooting in Kilmacolm. Known as the Duchal Moor Railway, it lies within the Clyde Muirshiel Park; it was used by, amongst others, King Edward VIII and finally closed in the 1970s.
caption: St Columba's Church, the steeple of which dominates the skyline of the village centre.
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