History of Marydale Church

Our Lady and St Bean’s Church, Marydale was completed, according to the date on the original drainpipes (still in place), in 1866. The architect was Joseph Hansom, also associated with the hansom cab.

The priest, Father Colin Grant lived at Glassburn during the building works, and “sold off his cows and some furniture, and all the farm things” to meet the cost of the buildings, although he could not stretch to a new bell before the Solemn Blessing (12th May, 1868). Colin Grant was consecrated Bishop of Aberdeen in 1889 and died six weeks later. The school, which opened a few years later, was very successful and numbers reduced by the clearances were boosted by Irish immigrants building the hydro-electric dams and the power station in Glen Cannich and Glen Affric.

St. Bean (also spelt Bain, Beathan and Baithene and pronounced Bane), after whom the Marydale church is named together with Our Lady, was the cousin of St. Columba, succeeding him as Abbot of Iona. Tradition is that he evangelised Strathglass. He gives his name to St. Bean’s spring, which is on the hillside across the road from Clachan Comar, and was, until the mid-twentieth century, the drinking supply for Kerrow, the farm to the west of Clachan Comar.

Clachan Comar