Historic Kilbride goes digital

Archaeology student Sam Mcmanus-Shanks has time-travelled Historic Kilbride into the digital age.

 

Sam, from Glasgow University, has just helped launched a digital audio tour of the ancient church and graves site in Lerags Glen near Oban.

 

"attachment_778573" "" "300"] Historic Kilbride's new audio tour has 15 stations telling its story. KG_T36_historickilbride01

 

And by chance he discovered his ancestors once lived there.

 

Triggered on a smartphone by QR codes which link to its website, this means visitors can now learn all about the Prayer House, Churchyard and MacDougall Memorial Aisle at their own pace and without needing a tour guide to lead them.

 

Sam wrote the audio tour as part of Heritage Horizons – a project run by

 

CHARTS in partnership with the Argyll and Bute Museums and Heritage Forum.

 

Funding came from the Scottish Power Foundation to get more young people

 

involved in Argyll's heritage sector.

 

Sam scripted all the text, which was then recorded by members of the Friends of Kilbride (FoK) board of trustees and uploaded onto their website.

 

'I haven't quite processed yet that so many people from all over the world will be listening to something I helped make,' said Sam, who had also applied to Heritage Horizons to work on a project for nearby Dunollie Castle, Museum and Grounds.

 

'It was a sheer coincidence I got the opportunity to work with Historic Kilbride and then realised it was where some of my ancestors had actually lived,' said Sam, who  researched his own family tree.

 

Sam's fourth great-grandfather John McPherson was born in Kilbride in 1800 to parents Alexander McPherson, a tailor, who had married Sarah Cameron. Alexander plied his trade between Kilbride and Glasgow at a time when Oban was only just developing and Kilbride was the more prominent of the two places. John, who left to become a farmer in Kilsyth in Stirlingshire, was Sam's last link to Kilbride.

 

Hits on Historic Kilbride's website have soared since Sam's audio tour went live. Visitors making the journey to the site have 15 stations to stop off at as the site's story unravels.

 

CHARTS chairperson Jo Mclean said: 'CHARTS was delighted to help Friends of Kilbride develop this application which will significantly enhance the sustainability of Historic Kilbride.'

 

The roofless ruins of the old parish church of Kilbride are on the drove road

 

running through the glen at Lerags. What you can see now dates from 1706 and replaces a  medieval church that was dedicated to St Bridget who founded the first church on the site in AD 525.  The MacDougall burial aisle, two metres south of the

 

church, is a roofless, rectangular enclosure containing the graves of clan chiefs

 

going back to the 18th century. The churchyard has lots of inscribed medieval headstones.

 

Historic Kilbride is run entirely by volunteers and  is open seven days a week. To find ot more, visit  www.friendsofkilbride.scot

 

In 2016, the Friends of Kilbride commissioned a comprehensive conservation assessment from architect Shauna Cameron before removing extensive ivy and other vegetation from the MacDougall Burial Aisle. The doorway into the West Gable Wall was then rebuilt and reopened, made possible by generous grants from the Caraig Gael Wind Farm Community Trust and from the Clan MacDougall Society of North America. Work has also been carried out on the North Wall and Session House thanks to a substantial grant by Historic Environment Scotland's Covid Recovery Fund.

 

Fundraising still continues to restore the South wall.