The snow has retreated to the tops of the Cairngorms and the last fragments of ice are crumbling at the edges of Loch Insh. In a muddy landscape, an old white church rises on a knoll on the northern shore. The simple stone building with its bell tower and arched windows dates to 1792, though the site was established by early monks from Iona, probably as far back as the seventh century. Indeed, some sources claim this as the site of longest continuous Christian worship in Scotland.
Those early monks would have built a stone cell here as a dwelling and a base for evangelising. A later chapel was dedicated to St Adamnan – the ninth abbot of Iona and Columba’s biographer – and a rough granite font remains from that time. The monks rang a bell to announce worship and the kirk still holds a bronze bell dating to AD900, one of only five left in Scotland. Resonant with legends, the bell was believed to have the power of healing and was once stolen and carried to Scone Palace – but it flew home, tolling the chapel’s name all the way over the Drumochter Pass.
These ancient treasures anchor the site to a long history, but the church is a bright and living space, with a committed congregation and clear windows, the front one etched with a Celtic cross to echo St John’s Cross on Iona.
Light spills in and the views open out on to birch, larch and Scots pine, where a rookery is a noisy choir and red squirrels scamper in the branches above snowdrops. Loch Insh and the Marshes are sanctuaries for threatened wildlife, harbouring otters, beavers, goldeneyes, curlews and ospreys that return every summer. Mute swans are here year-round, and in winter we welcome whooper swans from Iceland.
The Celtic church was known for its celebration of nature as a gift and revelation of God, and legend has it that the monks of Loch Insh used their sacred bell to summon the swans to worship. The old kirk is under threat of closure, but the community is flocking to save it so that the songs of birds, bells and worshippers may ring on.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com
