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The old ruined Church greatly adds to the attractiveness of the site. This Church was built in 1631 by David Murray, Lord Scone, who held the patronage at the time, to replace an earlier little Church directly to the east of it, where Rob Roy's grave is sited. David Murray's initials and the date can still be seen above the doorway. The ogee windows on the south side are specially lovely.
This Church was in use until 1855, by which time dampness, ferns and fungi on its inside walls made it in sore need of replacement. If Rob Roy attended Church at all this would have been the one.
Its most famous minister was Robert Kirke, who ministered here for sixteen years. He was a young man of twenty when he first came. He believed in fairies and wrote a book about them called "The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies." His wife, who died on Christmas Day 1685, leaving two baby boys, is buried close to the western entrance to the Churchyard. Kirke sculpted the stone himself but, sadly, it it is now so eroded as to be no longer decipherable. We do, however, have a copy of the inscription carved on it and other mementoes of Kirke's ministry will be found inside the present Church.
The Stewart of Glen Buckie who led his men out in the 1745 Rebellion was buried in the 1631 Church. He got as far as Leny House near Callander where he was invited by Buchanan of Leny to spend the night. Next morning he was found dead in bed, shot through the head, a discharged pistol in his hand. Buchanan of Leny was later hanged at Carlisle for the crime, protesting his innocence to the bitter end. In 1855, when burial vaults were being prepared in the Church, a skull was dug up, the ball still rattling about inside. Skull and ball were re-buried.
The ashes of the parents of the present MacLaren Chief are also buried within this Church. The MacLarens were the first people in the glen whose name has come down to us. They took their name from Abbot Labhran of Cuilt, who administered a religious settlement round the hill to the north of the glen entrance somewhere about the 1200's. It was Labhran who built the first little Church on the hill in Balquhidder and because of that the MacLaren Chiefs had the right of burial within the Church. A very imposing MacLaren stone giving a good deal of historical information stands south of the ruined Church.
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