Lunna Church And Churchyard, Lunna Ness

The church at Lunna Ness, built in 1753, likely incorporates earlier fabric and was altered around 1840 and 1933. It is a traditional, galleried hall church of rectangular plan, distinguished by its unusual buttresses and a lean-to vestry centered on the north elevation, along with a wide forestair leading to the gallery at the west gable. The walls are of harled rubble, with a base course.

The east, or entrance, gable is symmetrical, featuring a vertically-boarded timber door at centre, framed by concrete pilasters and lintel. A concrete surround frames a fanlight and a window above the door, with another window aligned above the gallery. The south elevation is also symmetrical, with substantial buttresses at the centre, incorporating a flight of crowsteps to the east side. Modern, tall four-pane timber fixed-light windows are in the bays flanking the centre. Buttresses with raggles face the inner faces of the bays, linked by a low rubble wall. The outer bays have two-pane timber fixed-light windows, and the elevation is framed by smaller buttresses.

The west gable is asymmetrical, with a rubble forestair rising from the south to a flagged platform. A vertically-boarded timber gallery door is set to the left of centre, with a small window above it and a narrow two-pane timber fixed-light adjacent to the right. The north elevation is nearly symmetrical, with a lean-to vestry at the centre featuring a single-flue wallhead stack.

The roof is covered in purple-grey slate, with interlocking droved ashlar skew-copes and bracketted skewputts to the principal gables, and droved ashlar skew-copes to the vestry.

Inside, many original timber fittings survive. These include vertically-boarded wainscoting to the ground floor and horizontally-boarded pews arranged in a U-plan around the pulpit on the south wall. The hexagonal, panelled and grained pulpit is accessed by balustraded steps, with a sounding board rising to a circular, corniced canopy topped with an urn. Timber Roman Doric columns support the U-plan gallery, which has boarded pews with panelled and grained fronts on the east and west sides, and a balustraded front in the centre. A pedimented monument from around 1780 is located on the south wall to the left of the pulpit, carved with emblems of death and dedicated to Thomas Hunter of Lunna, his wife, and son. A doorway on the north side contains an armorial monument from around 1700 to Robert Hunter and his wife, with a 17th-century inscribed stone below.

The churchyard is enclosed by a drystone rubble wall extending east and west from the north wall of the church. Square rubble entrance gatepiers are located to the east of the church, and the west wall extends north and south to the west gates and the shore respectively.