The Pulpit Rock, Ardlui (Argyll & Bute)
The Pulpit Rock, one of Scotland's most stunning and unusual locations for preaching, is to be restored for public use.
Known in Gaelic legend as Clach nan Tarbh, the Stone of the Bulls, the house-sized pyramid of rock on Loch Lomondside, south of Ardlui, has been hidden by dense wood for decades.
The rock was first used for preaching in 1825 after locals, mainly shepherds, in the northern part of Arrochar parish complained to the Rev Peter Proudfoot, their minister, about the eight-mile walk to and from their sabbath devotions.
If they built him a vestry and a pulpit, replied Mr Proudfoot, he would come and preach to them.
With money from two local worthies, Watson of Glenfalloch House and Grieve of Keilatur, the local men quarried out a 10ft-high hole in the face of the rock.
It was large enough to house the minister, an elder and the precentor who led the singing. Explosives were used, and a man called Robert MacFarlane was blinded by the blast.
A wooden platform with a pulpit was bolted to the rockface and a door was actually fitted to the hole in the rock, a metal hinge of which is still there.
Services were held during the summer months for 75 years, until a mission church was established at Ardlui in 1895. At some point, the wooden door and pulpit platform were used by tinkers for fuel.
from http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11961537.Parish_revival_to_be_built_on_foundation_of_Pulpit_Rock/ (30/05/2002)
