Kildonan Old Parish Church

Kildonan Old Parish Church was built between 1786 and 1788, with later alterations and additions dating from around 1918. It is a small, plain rectangular church, constructed with harled walls and ashlar stone dressings. The entrance is on the southeast side, featuring chamfered and stopped margins and a simple moulded cornice, flanked by a small window. A plain plank door is fitted with decorative wrought-iron hinges. The south elevation has three long windows, the one on the southeast replacing a former doorway. A blocked gallery window exists in the east gable, with a later bellcote at the apex of the east gable and a ball finial at the west.

The interior was reconfigured around 1918. A prominent, hexagonal pine-panelled pulpit stands centrally on the west wall, with a panelled backboard flanked by fluted pilasters and a hexagonal sounding board with a moulded cornice and classical detailing. East gallery panelling from 1786 is fronted by two marbled cast iron Roman Doric columns. The church has plain pine pews, and all windows contain stained glass installed around 1918. A 19th-century octagonal marble font, decorated with cherubs and intersecting tracery, is also present.

The church occupies the site of a medieval church dedicated to St Donan, which had originally belonged to Scone Abbey. The current church replaced a former heather-thatched building, which was described as “popish” and featured a Gothic window and a Clan Gunn mortuary chapel. The 1786 church was described in detail by Donald Sage, whose father, Alexander, served as Minister from 1787 to 1824. Originally, the pulpit stood on the centre of the south wall, flanked by two large windows, with galleries on the east, west and north accessed by external forestairs. A stained glass window commemorates F. Sykes of Borrobol, 1873-1917. A plaque at the east gable was erected in July 1968 to remember George Bannerman of Kildonan, great-grandfather to Rt. Hon. J.D. Diefenbaker, Prime Minister of Canada, and to all Selkirk Settlers who immigrated to Red River Settlement, Manitoba, in 1812-13.